Stages of an Overture
by endsoftime
Summary: In which Holmes is incapable of understanding emotion, Mycroft is frequently aggravated, and John Watson never backs down from a challenge, imaginary or otherwise. Eventual lemons.
1. The Introductions

Right. So, this is a new project. It's mostly done, and it is very, _very_ long. At first I wanted to post this in its entirety, but then I realized how unlikely anyone was to actually read it in one massive upload, so I am in fact doing it in pieces. One piece a week, giving me time to hopefully finish the ending before we actually get to it. This is largely a character-study piece, and a canon-based!AU. It's PWP of the Plot What Plot variety and not so much the porny kind, although there are sexytimes towards the end. Chapter lengths vary - by, like, _a lot_ - and some, like this first one, are very brief while others seem likely to never end. I really hope this doesn't end up being half as boring as I worry it might be. I hope you enjoy.

NB If Holmes seems slightly OOC in this, it's honestly because he is. But it's a _necessity_, and I'm too tired to fix it in any event. I hope you like! *crosses fingers*

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_The Introductions_

John Watson was an inquisitive, exuberant child, blue eyes wide and eager for life.

Sherlock Holmes was nine when his parents had decided on a vacation to the rolling, grassy hills of Scotland, in the village of Jedburgh. The weather had been ideal, a dull sun peering gently through the grey, wispy clouds, warm but not overbearing. A breeze tumbled through the valleys, brushing over the hilltops, and the entire affair was like a dream. Sherlock was considerably less enthused. His parents spent the majority of their time at social functions and art exhibitions in town, while his elder brother Mycroft was pleased enough to spend all his days confined in the library of the country estate where they were staying. Sherlock, however, required stimulation; he needed some sort of adventure, something to engage his mind as well as his senses, and that wasn't to be found locked inside a musty, ill-used room. And so it was that young Sherlock had taken to wandering the hillocks around the property lines, deliberately trying to get lost, while closely cataloguing the particular scents, leaves, mud, and residues that made up that exact area of Jedburgh, for really no other reason than that it was the most fascinating engagement currently available to him.

It was while he was studying the underside of the _Quericus_ leaf he'd found near the mouth of the Jedwater river that he heard a soft murmuring floating past him on the breeze. Dismissing it initially as the burbling of the water nearby, and then as his own passing fancies, Sherlock eventually realized he could pick out individual words amongst the dull, indistinct chatter. Someone was also out in the fields that day, and since there really was not much else to do, and the weather was uncommonly decent, Sherlock dropped the leaf and went in search of the quiet, lulling voice.

That was when he met John Watson. At the time, however, he had merely been a smallish boy of around eleven, stripped down to shirtsleeves, barefoot and waving a stick in some facsimile of a fencer. His light outer jacket and waistcoat were sat in a pile a few feet away, near his discarded shoes and stockings, the wind through the valley throwing his light brown hair into disarray; he had a small cowlick at the start of his hairline that had clearly been knocked free and now winged out, curling up and above his left eye. He murmured to himself, eyes bright and excited as he narrated an adventure of which he was the hero, bravely fighting off pirates or savages or whatever it was other young lads were wont to do. Sherlock watched, intrigued almost despite himself, and found that he had sprawled out on the thick grass to study the slightly older boy as he battled his imaginary adversaries.

The boy swung his stick up in an arcing parry, following through on the momentum until he had spun full round and finally noticed Sherlock sitting there. He paused then, blue eyes wide in surprise, before a blush that had nothing to do with embarrassment stole over his tanned features, and his entire face broke out into a bright, blazing smile. Throwing the stick over by his clothes, the boy marched up the side of the hill towards Sherlock, crouched right in front of him, and said, "Hello! Me name's John. What o' you?"

_Distinct Scottish brogue. Clearly he's a local, or at least visiting family._

"You live in the village, then?" Sherlock asked.

"Naw," John said, still smiling and not at all perturbed that Sherlock hadn't bothered answering him, "Me family's in visiting an aunt o'mine. An' you in from England?"

"My family desired a vacation, and had heard Jedburgh was quite nice this time of the year."

"Oh, aye, it's lovely. You like the country, then?"

Sherlock couldn't help but scowl. "It was my parents' idea. I hadn't anything to say on it."

John simply nodded placidly. "Well, Ah'm sorry if it's not all to yer liking."

"Why?" Sherlock asked, frowning.

"Why what?"

"Why are you sorry? It wasn't any of your doing that put me here."

"Well, if ye don' like it here, ye won't be happy. So Ah'm sorry for that."

This explanation only served to further confuse Sherlock, who gazed at the other boy with open incredulity. "How can you possibly care about my happiness when you don't even know me!"

"Do Ah have to?"

And he honestly didn't know what to say to that, as skinny beams of light broke through the clouds and the wind blew the scent of distant flowers over the hills and John continued to grin wide and guilelessly. Never in all his short life had Sherlock been so utterly taken aback, and his mind worked furiously to come up with some sort of response, hopefully suitably scathing, but before even the barest words could formulate in his head there was a loud, harsh yell of, "John! Get here, now!"

The boy's smile faded a touch as he turned around to reveal a much taller and older version of himself, standing at the crest of the other hill which formed the small valley where John had been playing at swashbucklers, and glowering intensely.

_An older sibling, then_, Sherlock thought, wondering at the less-than-pleasant twisting he now felt in his gut.

"But Andrew, Mum said a few hours was fine!" John protested, sounding remarkably less petulant than most other children Sherlock had encountered.

"Ah said now, John!" the young man named Andrew called, storming down into the little valley and straight up the side of the hill where he and Sherlock were perched. "Mum an' Dad are in town, an' when they aren't around, Ah'm in charge. Now come on!"

Andrew reached out and grabbed John just above the elbow and began dragging him back down into the valley. Sherlock leapt to his feet that same moment, but whether he was going to help John or whether he was going to run was never very clear, and as it stood, he did nothing but watch, alarmed, as the boy wrenched against his brother's hold.

"Let go, Andrew, Ah ken walk meself!" he yelled, digging his heels into the soft ground and clawing at the hand gripping him. Judging by the ferocity of the hold, Sherlock determined there would probably be bruises by next morning. He shifted slightly, uncomfortable and unsure why as the boy finally tore free from his brother.

"An' get those clothes! They'll be ruined if ye leave 'em there fer too long!" Andrew called, trudging right back up the far hill from where he'd come, never once looking back.

Sherlock looked down into the valley and saw John's shoulders slump briefly before he reached down and gathered up his discarded garments. He truly didn't know why he was still there, observing this disquieting tableau of domestic existence, only certain of the fact that John was still there, and that he'd leave when John was no longer there. Once everything was folded properly and bundled into thin, sinewy arms, John turned back to look up at Sherlock, eyes bright once more, mouth smiling again, if somewhat less exuberant, and waved his shoes in the air, calling, "Bye!"

Sherlock lifted a hand in farewell, and waited until John's bright head of hair had disappeared over the far hillside before he turned and made his way back home. When Mycroft deigned to put down a book long enough to ask where he had been, he said he'd been documenting the flora of the hillocks, and said nothing about the boy and his brother. He had the notion that somehow Mycroft knew anyway.

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Soo...any thoughts? It's just the beginning, mind, more will be up in a week, but hopefully your curiosity has been piqued! COMMENTS ARE LOVE!


	2. Idle Pleasantries

Yes, well. I told you the chapter sizes vary. Hope you enjoy it!

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_Idle Pleasantries_

It was some years later, while at University in Cambridge, that Sherlock discovered there may in fact be some credence to what the more superstitious masses called "Fate." It was an overcast, dreary sort of Sunday when Holmes commandeered the chemistry lab, determined to see his flame-retardant waistcoat experiment a success.

"Dare I ask what purpose you intend this to serve, Holmes?" Reginald drawled, the suave, well-born finance student who had taken to following Holmes around as a form of amusing diversion. Holmes tended to intentionally repel most people who tried to impose their company upon him, but Reginald stayed, for the most part, out of Holmes' way and his business, and wasn't too terrible for a witty turn of phrase, which was honestly more recommendation than a good majority of the student body could boast. He ignored Reginald for the moment, who acquiesced to being ignored in much the way that rich and terminally boring men do, namely: without complaint. This also suited Holmes well, and so he permitted Reginald to stay.

Upon the fourth abysmal failure, Holmes threw his equipment to the table with a snarl of disgust, because not only did he still require answers, he also was in sudden, desperate need of new waistcoats. Perhaps some of his fellow dorm mates had been remiss enough to leave their doors unlocked…

"Holmes?"

He blinked back into the present, Reginald watching him with an arched and well-manicured eyebrow.

"Oh! Yes. My apologies, Reginald, I was merely going through the processes involved in picking Atkinson's room lock."

"Of course you were. And what, pray tell, do you need from Atkinson?"

"A waistcoat, ideally, although he may notice the absence of a shirt considerably less. However I have not yet calculated how the difference in thickness of the material will affect the flame-retarding agent."

"And why do you need a flame-retarding agent?"

"For in case I am ever set on fire," Holmes muttered, swiping all the ashen remains of his finery onto the floor and dragging his mathematics sheet in front of him, determined to find a solution to the problem.

"How often do you anticipate such an event?"

One thing about Reginald that eventually wore on Homes' nerves was that he was so steeped in apathy as was expected of someone so vastly greater than his peers that he was nigh on impossible to rile or surprise in any way. And a man who could not be surprised was a man frequently too boring to hold Holmes' attention for long periods of time. Such a period of time was very quickly coming to pass.

"Not incredibly," was Holmes' blunt reply, and with that he resumed ignoring the young man in favor of going through the equations over and over again.

As he was mixing the requisite chemicals together to create what he hoped this time was the proper flame-retarding agent, his peripheral senses picked up on a series of hurried footsteps and fabric flapping as someone came rushing into the lab.

"I cannot _believe_ I forgot it!" the man muttered furiously to himself as he made a dash for the set of tables just across the narrow room from Holmes and Reginald, hunting around the stools for whatever it was he'd left behind. It was strange that Holmes should even notice, fixated as he was on pouring out the precise measurements he needed, but somehow it managed to register within his hyper-focused mind that the voice had a particular, although faint, Scottish slur.

_Scottish brogue. Low mutters. Talking to himself_.

Holmes nearly dropped the vials he held when the pieces finally fell into place. Feeling the beginning tendrils of shock grip his core, his eyes darted up to take in the sight of the slightly older student who was scurrying around the opposite table on a hunt for his missing possessions. Trim cut, shorter than Holmes, tanned skin and light brown hair, with the slightest cowlick in the front.

Of course it was John. Who else could it have been? That Holmes had been here two years already and never realized he also attended was what truly shocked him. Also, the fact that he'd been quite convinced he'd never see the boy with bright blue eyes and unblemished smile again. Shaking his head as a dog trying to rid its ears of water, Holmes attempted to rally his senses and refocus on the experiment at hand. If he did not devote his undivided attention to this endeavor, it would dissolve into failure once more. So long as his temporary lapse went unheeded by any…

"And your name is?" he heard Reginald ask from across the room, and cursed himself to an early grave because Reginald, that fiend, had noticed the slip.

And now Holmes couldn't keep his eyes from wandering over to the two men standing at the table just ten feet away, watching as John straightened from his crouch to smile at Reginald and offer him a long, dexterous-looking hand.

"John Watson. My apologies for causing such a ruckus."

_John Watson_, Holmes couldn't help but think. It seemed to suit him, inexplicably.

"Reginald Musgrave," Reginald replied, shaking John's hand, listlessly imperious mien in place. "No doubt you've heard of my family."

John's grin hitched in a subtle, smirking gesture. "I have, sir, certainly." And without another word, John resumed his search of the surrounding tables for whatever it was he'd managed to misplace.

For all that Holmes performed bizarre experiments, collected outrageous costumes, and crawled spider-like through underbrush on a regular basis, it was John's utter lack of interest in Reginald's considerable social position that finally roused the indolent aristocrat into a state of astonishment. Holmes was in a similar condition when he realized he'd indulged in the smallest of grins at this revelation.

Reginald cleared his throat, trying to regain control of the situation, but Holmes very much doubted he would be successful, since neither he nor John were particularly interested in him or his heritage.

"And where are you from, Mr. Watson?" Reginald asked, making no attempt to hide the sneer evident in his voice.

"Scotland," was the light but simple answer; still somehow polite while being entirely dismissive.

"Yes, I had gathered that myself," Reginald huffed. "I was wondering exactly whereabouts in Scotland you were from."

"Nowhere in particular, but in the general area of the country."

Reginald cast a sweeping gaze over John that Holmes did not entirely approve of, and leered slightly at the skin of his face and hands which were notably darker than the room's other occupants.

"Yes, the country, I see. And what would bring Mr. Watson from the Scottish countryside all the way here to Cambridge, I wonder."

"Education."

There was a bite now to John's tone, and if Holmes were a better person he may have warned the ever-oblivious Reginald that this man, however affable at the outset, clearly had a limit. And Reginald was growing ever closer to exceeding that limit.

"Dare I inquire as to how, exactly, you managed to…compensate for your admission here?"

John froze, eyes utterly inscrutable, his entire body gone rigid in defense, and that same urge Holmes had back when he was just a child and watched a young Scottish boy be hauled off by his older brother, the urge that had sent him to his feet, the impulse to somehow, in some way, intervene on the boy's behalf, rose up inside him again. But again, he did nothing, only observed like the detached and aloof scientist all his fellows thought him to be. And he did quite a bit to encourage this opinion. Only, this time, the hesitation rankled within him.

"It is apparent, Mr. Musgrave, that I am not as wealthy nor high-born as yourself. You have my congratulations on your good fortune. I ask that you leave off perusing my own fortune, good or ill as it may be."

He went back to the search for his missing belongings, whilst Reginald simply stood there, once more shocked into silence. Holmes felt a mounting confusion bubble up from somewhere in the vicinity of his gut, entirely uncertain as to how he felt about anything he had just witnessed. On the one hand, he knew Reginald to be the sort of fop who paraded his heritage around like a show dog, and was not at all above jeering at those who were clearly of a lower station than he – which amounted to damn near the entire student body, and a large portion of the faculty. All of this was something Holmes was aware of, and it had never appealed to him, though nor had it overly bothered him, and Holmes himself had never been subject to it because his name was well-known enough to garner some level of harmless apathy from the aristocrat. But in this scenario, with Reginald's condescending judgment falling on the same shoulders Holmes had seen slump in that grassy valley of Jedburgh, watching the dancing light leave out of those bright blue eyes, something within him rebelled quite viciously. But it could not be denied that he found some elements of this amusing; John Watson, without a doubt, was a man who could hold his own against an adversary. And, as he was quickly discovering, Holmes rather liked watching John fight.

It was unfortunate, however, that his mind's intense focus on the unfolding scene caused a distinct slackening in the fingers that still held the chemical vials aloft, and, as it turned out, Holmes had not discovered a flame-retarding agent but a substance that could ignite itself without any sort of combusting impetus. Within seconds the table, his papers, and his shirtsleeve were ablaze.

This was clearly not his day.

The entire room was suddenly filled with commotion as Reginald threw himself over the far side of the table, wailing and cowering beneath his arms, while John gave a startled cry and leapt near clear across the room to where a pot of flowers was sat on a side table behind the professor's desk. Grabbing the pot, he covered the distance to Holmes' quite literally enflamed self in a matter of two long strides and without preamble, upended the pot, flowers and water and all, over Holmes and the smoldering desk.

Drenched, burned, fifth time failing and now in need of a new shirt as well as waistcoats, Holmes was not in a spectacular mood. Especially when he looked down at what had been his calculations sheet to find nothing but a charred, dripping pile of mush.

"Are you all right?" John asked, blue eyes wide with concern.

To date, Holmes was never certain why he responded in this fashion, other than that he was vexed and exhausted and soaked and his hand hurt where the flames had licked it, and it had dawned on him that John hadn't even been aware of his presence in the room until he was on fire.

"As I seem to be creating a puddle on the floor and am in need of an entirely new wardrobe, which does not even begin to touch upon weeks of now wasted scientific and mathematical endeavor," he started, picking up the soggy bits of paper and throwing them back down on the table in disgust, "a child could quite easily deduce that no, in fact I am not all right!"

Something flashed across John's face just then, a completely unfathomable expression, but was chased away by the ensuing look of quietly offended frustration.

"Yes, well, if ever I happen to find you in similar straits, I will be sure to keep in mind that death by conflagration is not an unwelcome outcome for you, and leave you to it."

With a sharp nod, John grabbed the flower pot and marched it back to the table from where he'd retrieved it. As he turned on his heel, he paused, looked down at the space behind the professor's desk, and let out a sigh of defeat, shoulders slumping –and Holmes refused to have any reaction to the sight whatsoever because he was _mad_ – and reached down with a muttered, "There the blasted thing is!"

He pulled the "thing" up on top of the desk, revealing that the missing item he'd been so desperately searching for was, to Holmes' reluctant surprise, a doctor's medical bag. John unclasped it, rummaged around inside it for a moment, no doubt to ensure nothing was tampered with, and closed the bag again with a decisive snap. He looked up, then, eyebrow arched and glancing pointedly at Holmes' hand.

"I can have a look at that if you wish."

Holmes actually felt himself sneer, and he was slightly concerned about his lack of control over his reactions. "If I feel it needs medical attention, I shall be certain to engage the services of a real doctor."

John's mouth tightened, jaw clearly clenched, and he nodded again. "Very well."

He left without another word.

"Country boys," Reginald said with considerable contempt. "I fear they'll be the end of this fine establishment."

Holmes threw his ruined mathematics sheet at him and didn't speak to him for the rest of the day.

Holmes was unsurprised to find that he had no classes with John Watson. Since the man was currently in the medical program, studying to be a general practitioner, and Holmes had no specific arena of study to speak of, it was no small wonder they had taken so long to cross paths again. Their lack of communication could also be largely attributed to their last encounter, which had not ended on the best note. Holmes could not in all honesty explain why things came about the way they had, and for that reason he was slightly more willing to avoid John Watson, as the man had an uncomfortable habit of causing Holmes to respond in unpredictable ways. But he was not above tracking down information about the man from other students, asking innocuous questions and pretending he didn't care much for the answers; over the years he had noticed a tendency people have that if they think a person doubts the interest or importance of their story, they will tell far more than they initially intended to. And so by the time the week was out, Holmes learned that John Watson was a twenty-three year-old medical student, he was enrolled that term in a biology class, advanced anatomy, and an introductory chemistry course –which explained his doctor's bag being left in the lab the other day. He was also a rugby player of not inconsiderable skill, and by all accounts was a generally well-known and widely liked individual. He had the notoriety that came not from Reginald's ilk, who were revered for their current sizeable wealth and the inevitable power that comes from such, but rather the sort of sincere yet slightly impersonal regard that stems from being a genuinely decent person.

And that, at least for the moment, seemed the most succinct way Holmes knew of to describe John Watson: genuinely decent, possibly even kind. Although he did seem capable of a grudge, since he had no qualms ignoring Holmes' existence, though he didn't necessarily blame the man. Holmes was not exactly the most sociable creature on the best of days, Mycroft had spared no feelings in making that abundantly clear to him, and on such a day that he'd been taxed beyond endurance, well…it was unfortunate, to say the least. But Holmes was a decent chap in only sporadic increments, and so he had not as of yet seen fit to actually apologize to John Watson, nor even acknowledge him when he saw him about campus, and so their rift was solidified. But yet again no, since a rift implied that two things were once joined together, and he and Watson had never had any sort of connection, save for five minutes when they were both boys in Jedburgh for a weekend, and that couldn't possibly count, could it? No, Holmes rather thought it did not, and so it was not a rift they had, it was nothing at all, just as it always had been, or perhaps never was, or…

The whole scenario was simply too vexing to contemplate.

"Well aren't you simply delightful tonight, Sherlock?" Mycroft growled from his seat across the table at the small café where they dined one evening weeks after what Holmes' brain attic had rather overdramatically titled The Incident. The elder Holmes had, in rare form, taken a short holiday from his recently garnered position at White Hall, and had used the time to stop by Cambridge and check up on his troublesome younger brother, as Holmes had the – apparently – annoying habit of never answering his mail. To Holmes, Mycroft had the annoying habit of sending an inordinate amount of letters.

"If it displeases you so, you may take your leave at any time, brother mine. Certainly don't linger on my account," Holmes hissed back, arms crossed petulantly over his chest as he sunk low in his chair.

"Sit up, for God's sake, you are in public!"

Holmes resisted the very real urge to stick his tongue out at his older sibling, but did in fact sit up.

"How have classes been so far, Sherlock?" Mycroft carried on, straight to the point as ever.

"Overwhelmingly boring. I shall surely waste away with these conditions, or perhaps be driven mad by my own rebelling mind!"

"You think far too highly of yourself, brother, if you think your mind advanced enough to drive itself mad," the considerably larger Holmes said with a smirk. Holmes smirked in return, for they both knew just how very possible it was.

He sighed. "There truly is nothing of interest going on, Mycroft. For the sake of reconciling your trip, as well as my own sanity, I wish it were not the case. I have absolutely nothing with which to engage my mind."

Those grey eyes set in the rounded, weighty face stared at him for a disconcerting second, and Holmes was reminded again of why most other people were so uncomfortable around him; both brothers had inherited the same piercing gaze and bizarre eye color from their mother, by this time now sadly deceased along with their father. Mycroft nodded to himself, taking a slow sip of his tea, before saying, "That isn't an accurate assessment in the slightest, Sherlock. You are far too composed for the inactivity you are claiming, and while your snappish mood does lend itself to the notion that nothing of any conventional means –conventional by _your_ means, of course – is at present engaging your attention, something else certainly is."

Holmes shifted in his seat, determining to meet that discerning gaze with all the defiance he could muster, regardless of how futile any efforts at concealment would be. Holmes may be good at what he does, but Mycroft was undeniably better.

"It's that boy again, isn't it?"

Holmes stiffened. Mycroft caught it.

"What on earth do you mean?" he demanded, prevaricating anyway, because surrender was never really an option.

"Do leave off the pointless volleying, Sherlock," Mycroft reprimanded, sinking further into the chair that protested quietly at bearing his girth. "There is only one other occasion on which I have seen you this mentally occupied, and yet so thoroughly cagey, and it was right after you had met that boy whilst on vacation."

"One could hardly call that 'meeting' a person - "

"—And he's here now, isn't he? You've encountered him again. It is no wonder, then, that you are so very out of sorts."

Holmes twitched, breathing through clenched teeth. "You vex me incalculably, brother dearest."

"The feeling is mutual, I assure you."

"What does it matter to you, in any event? It's not as though _you_ have ever exerted yourself in the realm of forging relations with people."

"And you have traditionally done quite the opposite, Sherlock; not exerting yourself so much as purposely isolating yourself. So you will forgive me if I find a shift in that paradigm worthy of ruminating on."

Holmes' hands clenched and unclenched, some emotion heating his neck, though he was not sure if it was embarrassment or rage, and he wasn't entirely clear on why he was reacting so strongly in the first place, which only served to further confirm his suspicions that John Watson was a terrible influence in his life, if even here, miles away from the man, the mere mention of him sent Holmes into illogical fits.

"I think it quite meritorious, in fact," Mycroft said after a brief pause.

"Do you, then?" Holmes spat.

The elder raised an eyebrow towards his prominent widow's peak. "No need to be uncivil, Sherlock. I merely meant that it is refreshing to see you take such interest in another human being for their own existence, and not the puzzles they offer you."

With that he took another sip of tea, satisfied that his point had been made and the discussion need go no further. Holmes was relieved, but failed to mention that Mycroft was in fact wrong: John Watson was a puzzle, of the highest order. Or at the very least, the responses he caused in Holmes were a puzzle.

And for the first time in his relatively young life, Holmes somewhat doubted he would solve this puzzle to his liking.

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Well, I certainly hope any of you are still interested in this little (not so little. Really) character study. COMMENTS ARE MORE THAN WELCOME. TRULY AND SINCERELY. I luv you guys.


	3. Discussing the Weather

Hi! I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing! It means a lot to me :D I hope you all continue to enjoy it!

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_Discussing the Weather_

"I still fail to understand why we must stand out here like utter lumps," Reginald muttered, displaying a rare departure from his usual _ennui_ by being thoroughly unpleasant.

Holmes sighed, beginning to despair of his choice of companions, and not for the first time. "As I have said perhaps seven times already, we agreed to meet Ashbury here by the oak so that he might engage our services without being incredibly conspicuous about it."

"You mean to engage _your_ services. I have nothing whatever to do with the business."

"Then leave," Holmes said, unconcerned. "I certainly shan't stop you. In fact, I don't even recall inviting you in the first place."

Reginald continued to grumble bad-temperedly under his breath but he did not, in fact, leave. Holmes wasn't surprised; Reginald was almost pathetically predictable, and more than anything he despised losing face. Under no circumstances could he remove himself from Holmes' company after rashly hurling himself into it without good reason, and usually the sort of reason that leads to weeks of taunting. Reginald knew by then not to taunt Holmes, in any event, and so the poor fellow was stuck there under a large oak tree on a remarkably fair day for October.

Reginald sighed after a time. "It's all very well to meet him," he began, "but why here, of all places?"

"There are plenty of students milling about," Holmes replied quickly, because he had in all truth rehearsed this answer should the young aristocrat prove insightful enough to ask that exact question. "If we were to choose a secluded place, our desire for secrecy would look considerably suspicious to any who happened to observe us. In this way, we are too insignificant a gathering of people to bestir anyone's curiosity, and our appearance in public serves to dismiss any potential concern over the nature of our meeting."

The fact that the rugby team was scrimmaging just thirty feet away had absolutely nothing to do with Holmes' decision of a rendezvous point, even if John Watson played prop for said team and was currently tackling unfortunate blokes with quite extraordinary expertise. It was by pure chance that the rugby field happened to be so close to such a perfect landmark, and a mere fluke that the time of meeting should coincide with their practice schedule. John Watson had nothing to do with this. He had nothing to do with Holmes whatsoever.

Perhaps that was entirely the problem. Holmes was determined not to think much about it.

"Well, where is this Ashbury fellow? It's going on an hour now, and he's had yet to show."

"I'm sure he has engagements elsewhere. I do believe he is enrolled in the law program here, and is quite abominably busy as a result. Besides, the weather is more than decent today, and it will probably be the last of its kind for quite some time now; we may as well enjoy it."

The fact that Holmes had arrived at the rendezvous point a full hour before the appointed time he told Ashbury also had nothing to do with the fact that once Ashbury arrived, Holmes would need to give him his full attention and would no longer be able to casually observe the rugby practice currently in session. And once again, the fact that John Watson was on the aforementioned rugby team had, of course, nothing whatever to do with this. At all. In any way.

It did little to explain the dreadful sinking sensation he felt in the general area of his large intestine when Ashbury finally came jogging up to them not three minutes later, puffing and apologizing for his lateness. Holmes had somewhat hoped the lad would have fallen down a dry well, thus affording him the entire afternoon to do…well, whatever it was he was currently doing. He certainly wasn't about to give a name to this particular pastime, because then he might need to go about the exhaustive toil of analyzing the _why_ behind his actions, and Holmes had never sought after ignorance in a matter so ardently in his existence.

There was danger in this, he could deduce that much already.

And even with the approach of his prospective client – who had merely misplaced the very expensive pocket watch he had pilfered from his father's affects over the last holiday in the hopes of impressing the innkeeper's daughter on Ipsin St., and if the fool would _pay attention_, he would realize that the watch had slipped into a tear in the stitching of his best suit-jacket and nothing more – Holmes could not in all honesty give him his attention. In fact he barely looked at the young man, eyes still riveted on the game going on right beside him. Holmes had never been a fan of sports in general; he was plenty athletic, but in a more confrontational, one-on-one method of exercise. Team endeavors had never appealed to him in any way, whether as participant or spectator. So there really was no explanation for his intense interest in this particular rugby scrimmage, other than the unnamable, indefinable presence of John Watson. And the only thing Holmes was entirely certain of was that John Watson was there, and that he would not leave until John Watson was no longer there.

"Holmes? Are you listening Holmes?" a tentative voice called to him as if from the end of a long tunnel, and Ashbury had clearly been trying to draw his attention for quite some time. He blinked, shook his head once, firmly, trying his damndest to pull away from this uncontrollable focus that had ensnared his mind.

Holmes managed to tilt his head slightly in Ashbury's direction, even if he couldn't actually move his eyes from the field. A compromise, then. "My deepest apologies, Ashbury, what were you saying?"

On his other side, he could feel Reginald staring very openly at the side of his head in a singular show of sudden curiosity in something that had no direct relation to himself. Holmes ignored this. He could barely function enough as it was, with his brain power split so unequally; the last thing he needed was yet another anomaly to dissect. Ashbury opened his mouth to, once again, ramble through his entire sad affair, and poor soul that he was, Holmes heard no further than, "As I was saying," before the very beginnings of an unholy ruckus suddenly began to play out before his eyes.

It was frightfully uncanny, really, how the mere tilt of the opposing team's halfback, aiming away from John Watson's formidable and inevitable approach, could somehow cause a series of deductions to run rapid through Holmes' head, and he knew what was going to happen only seconds before the entire debacle was enacted on the field. He knew before he saw it that the halfback would lose his footing, would slip up and send himself into the air mere heartbeats before Watson actually reached him, and they were both lucky that the Scot was smaller than was traditional for a prop, or else this would be considerably worse than it already was going to be. When the tackle eventually occurred, Holmes knew almost the exact angle to which the halfback's upper torso would angle towards the ground, how Watson, somehow anticipating disaster whilst airborne, would twist himself, curling his own head forward and aiming to land on his back, how the halfback's legs would try to tuck in, how Watson was now careening towards the ground ahead of his prey and slightly beneath him, how the impact came quick, how the halfback's spin curved upwards, how the top of his head cracked against the ground the same instant his knees burrowed into Watson's side, taking the other down fast with him, and how they would ultimately go flailing away from one another, rolling and bouncing apart like spinning tops in conflict.

How they both laid there, remarkably still, for precisely ten seconds, and despite the fact that Holmes _knew_ how long ten seconds was, nonetheless it felt like ages. Then a cacophony started up as the other players realized what had transpired, and numbers 1 and 6 darted forward followed at the heels by the rest. And finally John Watson stirred, Holmes feeling his lungs expand again after moments untold, and despite the initial, frantic gasps for air and the pained squint of his eyes, Watson still somehow reached the unfortunate halfback before anyone else. Whipping off his leather headgear as he went, Watson fell to his knees beside his fallen teammate, and with hands that remained surprisingly steady, he undid the fellow's own headgear and inspected first the inside, swore, and turned his attention once more the unconscious man.

"What the Devil just happened?" Reginald asked, and of course he hadn't actually seen it, because he had been too preoccupied with fruitlessly studying Holmes to notice anything short of a wild stampede of multi-colored rhinoceroses. Holmes didn't deign him with response, too enthralled with the way Watson pulled back the other man's eyelids, felt along his jaw and the back of his head, assessing injuries with a speed one would expect from the most practiced and well-trained of physicians.

Perhaps Holmes had been overhasty in refusing the good doctor's aid. The flesh of his hand still throbbed occasionally.

"Is that the bumbling country boy from a few weeks ago?" Reginald said, the very edges of a sneer in his tone, and Holmes was finding the lout more intolerable by the second.

"So it would seem," he barely gritted out.

"Dear me, I hope they're all right. They both appear rather roughed up," Ashbury murmured, his own troubles forgotten as his brown eyes surveyed the rugby field anxiously. Holmes approved more of this reaction, and he refused to speculate on why.

Watson sat back on his haunches, then, waving his arms to clear some space around his newest patient, barking orders at another boy who then ran off to the sidelines and snatched up a familiar black medical bag before scampering back. Two other boys were sent tearing into the school building, no doubt to alert the infirmary and perhaps acquire a stretcher, as Watson was now delicately examining the small vertebrae at the base of the man's skull and moving him seemed to have become risky.

"Do you think he's concussed?" Ashbury breathed.

Holmes nodded, then realized Ashbury wasn't looking at him. "Undoubtedly. I believe the other player fears of a broken neck, as well."

"Well if the idiotic tosh knew what the blazes he was doing, I dare say this wouldn't have been an issue!" Reginald scoffed, and Holmes entertained fantasies of slamming his head through the bark of the oak tree behind them.

"Really, Mr. Musgrave, that is most uncharitable," Ashbury piped up. "It's not as though the prop could have predicted what was going to happen!"

And for reasons that never did makes themselves clear to Holmes, he felt a distinct clench of something in his abdomen at this innocuous pronouncement, feeling ill and slightly guilty, because he _had _seen it, and that somehow meant he should have prevented this. But that was utterly irrational, and so he strove to push it from his mind, along with all the other steadily growing multitude of things he did not deem it safe to wonder about, and all of which, disconcertingly enough, had something to do with John Watson.

A nurse came sprinting out of the school building just then, followed quickly by the rugby players and two other professors carrying a stretcher, making a spirited dash towards the wounded boy.

Watson leaned forward, muttering fast and low to the nurse, no doubt communicating all he had gathered from his own observations. She nodded mutely, clearly not listening nor trusting his judgment, but instructing the professors to be careful anyway as they slowly lifted the limp body and placed it gently down on the stretcher in the grass. Within a matter of minutes, the flurry started up once more as the stretcher was hefted up and hurried back into the building, several players following after it, while the others milled about uncertainly in the field, casting occasional glances at Watson. For his part, the young Scot took a deep breath, head bowed, hands clenched into fists, before he slowly and painfully rose to his feet, and sharp spasm of discomfort flashing across his face when he bent to retrieve his black bag. One of the smaller backs moved to offer him assistance, but Watson merely waved the boy off before making a methodical and clearly dejected march towards the showers.

And in defiance to all logic, Holmes found himself going after the man. He heard Ashbury give a start and begin calling after him, and could feel the speculative looks of Reginald on his back, but he ignored all, even though he had been the one to drag Ashbury out there, it was of little consequence. He had known he would not leave until Watson had left, and now that he was leaving, Holmes decided that, this time, he would follow.

And yes, he still refused to think on it.

* * *

Holmes had never been in a sport team's changing room before, but it looked more or less like the changing rooms at the Turkish baths, at least in rudimentary design, with low benches along the walls and small cubbyholes above them for storing one's personal affects. John Watson stood at one such cubby towards the back of the long, narrow room, breathing heavily and clearly struggling to remove his sweat-and-mud smattered jumper, the occasional hitch in his chest attesting to the pain he no doubt was feeling. Holmes merely observed for a silent moment, standing at the opposite end of the room with his hands in the pockets of his university blazer and measuring his breaths to match Watson's so as to avoid detection. Although it appeared to be an unnecessary precaution, as the young man's difficulties were evidently distraction enough. He had only just pulled his head through the neck of the shirt when he let slip a muffled cry, shoulders tensing, breath forcibly slow and calm, trying to move through the discomfort, one hand braced on the edge of the cubby to keep him upright. It was at this display that Holmes thought he really should intervene, seeing as how none of the other players dared to disturb Watson at this moment – suggested by their curiously prolonged absence from showers they probably needed in equal measure – and the fool was going to do further harm to himself if he insisted on acting in such a bull-headed manner.

"I suppose it is true, then, that doctors make the worst patients," he said, keeping his tone dry and offhand.

Watson tensed once more, so powerfully that his slick boots skidded a few inches on the wood floor, and his upper body jerked, as though aborting the instinct to whirl around and look at Holmes, since he must have realized the further pain that would ensue.

Pausing a moment in an attempt to collect himself, John eventually said, "What in blazes are you doing here?"

He didn't address Holmes by name, nor had he looked to see who had spoken, but the level of irritation in his voice left no uncertainty as to whether or not he knew who was in the room with him. For some reason, this amused Holmes.

"I was meeting with a prospective client of mine, and happened to bear witness to your little scuffle on the field," he replied, and noted how Watson nearly flinched at the reminder, logging the reaction away for later perusal, "I could clearly tell you had been injured, but you also happen to be in possession of a quite formidable temper, thus discouraging your fellow teammates from following to assist you. I thought I would come see how you faired, as no one else did."

Watson scoffed. "What concern is it of yours, in any event? You were so very skeptical of my medical capabilities before, I don't see how your inexperience compounded with it would improve the situation much in your eyes."

"It is true that I have no need of medical knowledge, and am therefore not in possession of any," he threw out flippantly. "But seeing you administer so skillfully to that young man on the field has caused me to adjust my outlook on the subject."

There was another brief silence, but heavier; not charged with bewilderment, but thick with deep thoughts and unsettling notions, none of which Holmes was currently privy to, but was nonetheless conscious of.

Then, "It was my fault. Helping him was the least I could do."

Holmes blinked in surprise, and then snorted indelicately. "That is utterly preposterous," he chided, daring to slowly make his way closer to the young man whose back was still to him. "You had no more control over that than you do the shifting of the seasons. If the fellow had simply taken you head-on, it would have been considerably less traumatic for all involved; as it stands, he made the split second decision to try and avoid the tackle, and _voilá_! Utter catastrophe."

"Still," Watson sighed, bending carefully to pick up a sponge that sat in a water basin on the bench before him, "There should have been something I could have done differently."

"Should I ever develop a method by which man can stop forward trajectory whilst airbourne, I will surely inform you of it," Holmes said.

Watson let out a huff that very well could have been a laugh, or perhaps just a low exclamation of pain as he straightened up again, and Holmes decided it was more than likely the latter. He had never been much of the jesting type, after all.

And then Watson reached his arm over his shoulder, sponge in hand, and squeezed, sending water sluicing down his mud-streaked back. Holmes halted, frown burrowing between grey eyes.

"What are you doing?" he asked, managing to somehow sound suspicious.

"I have to apply some binding to my torso, and it would be convenient to clear off the dirt now, rather than later, and have to redo the whole thing."

Holmes nodded his understanding, and then murmured, "Ah," when he realized Watson couldn't actually see him. A few more cascades of water trailed down spine and protruding shoulder blades, Watson bending down slowly to rewet the sponge after every pass, and then the sponge disappeared towards the front, clearing the grime from Watson's stomach and chest.

The sponge finally dropped back into the basin, and now Watson reached into his bag for what appeared to be a roll of medical wrappings. He unwound about a foot of it, placing the end against the skin of his waist and trailing it around towards his back, before inhaling sharply, cursing low in Scottish. It seemed to dawn on him then the difficulty in trying to wrap the binding around his body himself, and so he stood there in mute frustration – and perhaps some humiliation, Holmes thought, noting the slight reddish hue at the back of his neck.

A sigh of defeat. "Since you are so determined to witness one of my lower moments, do you think…ah, that is, could you be persuaded, possibly, to render your services? Briefly?"

Holmes couldn't help the feelings of shock that seized him in that second, startled into silence at the mix of politeness and contrition Watson had succeeded in working into his request, which was justly put, since Holmes was in fact subjecting the unfortunate man to a deep scrutiny whilst he was half-bare, embarrassed, annoyed, guilt-ridden, and in considerable pain. It really only seemed fair, at that point, to offer what help he could.

"Er…" coughing slightly, more uncomfortable than he thought the situation really warranted, tentative steps forward, "What exactly do you need for me to do?"

It was obvious what he needed, but Holmes, in a rare show of humanity, thought John had been through quite enough indignities for one day, and so didn't wish to take any demeaning liberties.

That reddish tint to his neck worsened. "I…I need help wrapping this. I can't…to turn and do my back twists the ribs, and I fear…I fear doing them any more damage. So, if you would…" he trailed off, clearly too mortified to continue with the request, head hung low in an accurate simulation of shame.

"Of course," Holmes said, and then stopped again, because though it seemed a simple enough procedure, he hated running the risk of further injury. "Precisely how does one go about this?"

Another huff of breath, and though there was no painful movement that preceded it, it still seemed unlikely that Watson found him amusing.

"Simply hold this end here," he said, tapping a finger over the bit he'd loosed from the roll and already pressed against his side, "and continue wrapping the binding over it. It should go as high as my sternum, I think. Ten go-arounds should be enough."

Holmes nodded to himself, exact calculations running through his mind, taking in the approximate span of the doctor's waist and chest in centimeters, and determining that ten revolutions was indeed a fairly accurate assessment. That part was the easiest. It was when his hand reached out and settled over the end of the wrap, a combination of sterile fabric and warm skin, that he realized exactly how close he would have to be to this other person in order to fulfill the request, and Holmes had always been rather fond of physical boundaries. But he had already agreed to this, he told himself firmly, and he didn't have a viable excuse not to, and really, how long could the procedure take in all truth?

Evidently, it could take long enough to drive Holmes slightly insensible. After the first tentative revolution, Watson's hand came up over Holmes', fingers shorter and palms wider than his own, and said, "It needs to be tighter than that." His voice held no reproach, only a gently stated fact, and Holmes found himself nodding again, illogically, and slowly pulled the wrap tighter until Watson's fingers squeezed over his, and he knew he had reached the appropriate adjustment. If there were not already a multitude of reasons for Holmes to be out of sorts, he would have been vaguely disturbed by that display of nonverbal communication between near-strangers.

And so it went, a seemingly insufferable eternity of closeness and foreign skin and warmth that wasn't solely his own, too much stimuli at too close of a proximity to be properly sorted through and ignored, and at some point Holmes passed into a strange mental state in which, for an unprecedented span of time, his mind literally took nothing in, overwhelmed to the point of shutting down. However, this mental detraction helped to speed the process along, and it seemed one second he had barely covered Watson's waist, and then the next the binding was snug over the man's breast bone. He was relieved to find the job finally over, but somewhat more than disconcerted that he wasn't entirely sure how it had happened. Then he paused, suspended in time, wondering what exactly he was supposed to do now, and honestly dreading the answer.

"Thank you," Watson said, head still cocked forward, and then something gleamed just over the man's shoulder, and Holmes was startled to realize he held a scissors the entire time, only noticing it when it came up to snip the other end still attached to the roll. Holmes' fingers kept it in place. Watson's hands raised again, now clutching two small, slightly curved pieces of metal, with what appeared to be tiny hooks on one side, and taking one between his fingers, attempted to affix it to the wrapping…only to realize that the fabric ended nearly as high as his collarbone, and he could not see it even when he burrowed his chin into his chest. Watson heaved another sigh.

"I apologize, but do you think…"

Holmes murmured his assent to stop Watson having to actually voice the appeal, and took the small bits of metal. Only now Holmes found his arms under Watson's, wrapped round his chest as both hands needed to be employed for this final maneuver, and luckily his greater height prevented him from having to rest his chin on the other's shoulder in order to see what he was doing, but it was all too close regardless. His mind was yet detached, his body moving like an automaton with no cerebral input, long nimble fingers positioning the bits of metal as though they'd done it a thousand times. They were snuggly in place in a matter of seconds, hands lingering over the traces of a heartbeat, and Holmes could feel it even through the layers of medical wrapping, and he took an excessively large step back the second he determined that the binds would hold.

Watson didn't seem ruffled in the slightest; in fact he turned around then, gracing Holmes with a small, sheepish grin of thanks before reaching into the cubby to retrieve his shirt, which he slung over his shoulders with deliberate care, before slowly sitting on the bench, undoubtedly to undo his rugby boots.

Without conscious thought, Holmes launched forward again, going to his knees and one hand grabbing Watson's left, saying, "You shouldn't be bending so when you've broken two ribs, you'll only cause yourself more harm!"

Because he had broken two ribs, and possibly bruised another, Holmes had felt the unnatural dips and protrusions of misplaced bone, seen the swirl of purple-and-black contusions along his naked left side, all facts he didn't recall cataloguing, but nonetheless appeared before his mind's eye.

"It's quite all right," Watson assured, moving again to undo the ties, when Holmes went to knock his hands away.

"If you insist on taking them off, allow me!" he threw out hastily, reaching for the laces himself, managing to pull one free before a hand closed over his once more, not forcefully, but with an unmistakable firmness.

"I really must insist, my good man. You've done more than enough, and I thank you for it."

Holmes looked up, and astonishment once more rocketed into his core, and it was like that valley in Jedburgh all over again; no sweet breeze or soft grass or weak, warm sunlight through the clouds, but there were blue eyes and a bright, guileless smile, and so it was enough of the same. His breath caught, and for one terrifying second, there was not a thought in Holmes' head. But that second was brief, and when awareness finally came back, the only thought he had was to escape.

"Yes, well, it was my pleasure," he said all in a rush, and without waiting for a response or even looking back for one last glimpse of that expression, his long legs had carried him clear of the changing room and far, far away from John Watson.

* * *

Oh Holmes. You're so hopeless XD


	4. Hopes, Dreams, and Aspirations

So, I figured since I made some headway on my end, I'd ahead and post the next section. Hope y'all enjoy!

* * *

_Hopes, Dreams, and Aspirations_

Holmes did not encounter John Watson much after the incident in the rugby changing rooms, only in this circumstance it was no fault of Watson's that they avoided each other. He had tried, on a few occasions following that day, to approach Holmes, but Holmes had gone out of his way to evade the young man's every attempt at communication, until eventually the overtures had ceased. And while that had been exactly what Holmes had been angling for, there was still an annoying sensation of cool hollowness in his abdomen when John Watson stopped searching him out. Holmes pulled into himself around that time, cutting off even the few acquaintances he had been capable of maintaining all those years, because even the shallow, idle chit-chat that Reginald Musgrave provided was more proximity than Holmes could handle. His system had been overloaded by whatever had happened That Day – also given clear capitalizations in his brain-attic, not unlike The Incident – and he wasn't entirely sure what it was he wanted anymore, only that he was both relieved and disappointed that Watson was not somehow a daily fixture of his life. But he didn't know how that could be possible. He knew he did not want the young medico around, because he startled and confused him in a most distressing manner, and Holmes had much more pressing things in his life than ruminating over John-bloody-Watson.

And yet there was undeniably something else. There had to be something, there was in truth too much of something, and it captivated him almost as much as it disturbed him. And it was fascinating, however much he wished that his entire life wasn't swallowed up in all this, because it was something that Holmes could not yet identify or give a name to. And nothing enthralled Holmes more than a decent puzzle, and John Watson had always been a puzzle, of the most unsolvable order, and it frustrated and vexed and inspired. But it was dangerous, and never before had the aspect of danger given Sherlock Holmes pause, but this was a different sort of danger. Everything about Watson was different. It boggled the mind, like some undiscovered genus never-before seen by man, and now that Holmes had found it, he wasn't sure what to make of it. There was no answer available, and no amount of sleepless hours spent before the fire in his dormitory common room, smoking cigarettes and staring at the drapes unblinkingly could hunt up a satisfactory solution. And so he boxed up the entire tangled mess and the unpleasant affairs that resulted, and stored the lot of it in the deepest recesses of his mind, endeavoring to forget it and John Watson, and all the trouble he caused. And when Holmes put everything he had into an endeavor, he usually came out the victor.

This was no exception to that rule

And so it went that Holmes and Watson held no converse at all for nearly two years. At this point, Holmes was very near to finishing his studies, which had branched out to include biology, chemistry, advanced mathematics, fencing, pugilism (although that wasn't strictly a university course), criminology, British history of the past three hundred years, and rudimentary anatomy. The general assumptions around campus were that Holmes was either studying for the bar, or intending to become a police officer, neither of which were true, though neither were they entirely off the mark. Holmes' career of choice did not, at present, exist in the literal sense; it was an idea that had been fermenting in his mind for quite some time now, and only wanted the proper occasion to come into fruition. Holmes, always in possession of a strong sense of justice, was frequently dismayed upon reading the local newspapers and finding that the constabularies of the times were horribly remiss at solving even the most elementary of crimes. Supposed mysteries that Holmes could have solved from his seat at the dinner table from the age of ten proved utterly insurmountable to those in authority, and it rankled within him that such evils were allowed to run unchecked due solely to the ignorance of the Yarders. It had never been in question that Holmes had mental aptitude leagues beyond that of his peers, and he had decided that those innate powers of observation he possessed were the key to a gravely needed (and perhaps highly lucrative) position as a private consulting detective. If ever asked what exactly a private consulting detective detailed, Holmes could ramble on for time incalculable, never long-winded but always with the greatest of eloquence and pith, on all the many minute intricacies that made up his chosen profession. As it was, few people asked.

John Watson, at this time – from the occasional inquiry Holmes made here and there – was nearing on to graduation, having successfully completed his studies and only waiting, now, for the verification of his medical license. He had always been towards the top of his form, sometimes fluctuating between second and third place, but those were simply reflections of marks; Holmes had no doubt, given his sporadic experience as witness, that Watson would prove a far more practical physician than a rote academic ever would. Holmes suspected that John would move back to Scotland post-graduation, settle down in the country somewhere, because he seemed to fit so well there, and take up a small yet faithfully patronized practice, catering largely to families. And before the year was out, he was likely to be engaged, if not already walking down the aisle, for John Watson had never truly lacked for attention from anyone, be they male or female across the entire spectrum of regard, and so would most likely be snatched up by a fresh-faced Scottish girl the moment he set up shop. And when he left for his idyllic life of domestic stagnation, he would think once or twice about that daft boy he knew in university, and that would be the end of any connection he and Holmes had had. And Holmes knew this, knew it wouldn't be callousness on Watson's part, but simply the way of life to eventually move on from things one cannot change, and no one, not even the enigma of John Watson, could alter Holmes' complete abhorrence of personal intimacies. He was absolutely sure of this; it had been the case all his life, and it would continue to be until he shuffled off this mortal coil.

And then he heard two upperclassmen murmuring to each other one afternoon towards the end of term, mere weeks before the graduation ceremony, as he perused the agony columns in a basket chair near an open window in the common room.

"So he's really set on the idea, then? I mean… well, it seems such a waste, is all."

"That's what I've heard, in any event. He was rather adamant about it; seems to think it his personal obligation to save every single soldier on the field."

"He does realize that's utterly absurd? My brother works as a clerk in White Hall, and he says the press hasn't been publishing even half of what's really been going on. The numbers look terrible, and it's expected to worsen before the year is out."

"I believe it. Those Ghazis know no compassion; they're savages! They'll have murdered every last Englishman out there before they're done."

"Yes, that's true enough. I dearly hope that Watson comes to his senses before it's too late."

Holmes did not precisely recall the events immediately following this revelation: did not remember how he flung the papers into the air and launched himself out of the chair, covering the entire length of the room in a single bound before hurling through the common room door. He did not remember tearing through corridors, leaping over hedges, traversing the campus in a feverish sprint, startling the students and sending several gatherings of birds flocking away from him in fear. He did not remember running into the medico's dormitories, bounding up the staircase in as many steps as his long legs could reach, and barreling straight into room 302 where a sandy-haired youth reclined on a messy cot as he watched his considerably tidier roommate pack up his belongings. He didn't remember the thought process, wasn't conscious of how exactly he'd deduced over the years the precise location of John Watson's dorm room, wasn't even aware that he'd ever done such a thing until he'd already made use of the data, and honestly had no clue as to what he would say or do now that he had arrived at his destination; all thoughts within his head were running in circles, rats lost in a maze, blood cells careening through arteries choking on oxygen, and all was a pulsing white noise in his ears, and in summation, Sherlock Holmes – for the first time in his life – willingly abandoned logic.

"Get out," he said to the roommate whose name could not have mattered less in that moment, voice hard and brooking no argument, and surely he looked completely deranged – the two sets of wide eyes trained on him seemed to confirm.

The sandy-haired youth left without any questions, and very quickly at that.

Holmes then turned on the room's only other occupant. "What in Hell do you think you are doing?"

Watson had changed subtly since Holmes had last sought to look in on him; his hair was cropped closer than in earlier years, and his upper lip was now adorned with a neatly trimmed mustache, all within the methodical conformities and expectations of a military man.

Holmes' stomach twisted in a vice.

"I might pose the same query back at you," Watson said, a look of displeasure on his face, but to the man's credit, he did not seemed at all surprised by Holmes' rather sudden and seemingly random presence in his room after nearly two years of silence.

But Holmes did not have time for any pleasantries. The fate of something very important that Holmes could not in that very instant define was at stake.

"You are utterly mad if you are intending to go to Afghanistan," Holmes said, voice low and agitated. "You cannot possibly think it."

"And what on earth does it have to do with you?" Watson fired back, an indescribable look flashing through clear blue eyes before flitting away the next second.

"It simply is not logical!" Holmes exploded, and the irony would not have been lost on him if he'd been in any state to appreciate the fact. "You are just about to be granted your medical license! You will be a general practitioner, like you've always studied for, and you shall set up your firm out in the Scottish countryside, and women will bring their colicky children to you and their rampant hypochondria, and they shall make you reasonably wealthy with all their hysterical nonsense, and you – you – for Heaven's sake, think of your wife!"

Of all ways Watson could have responded to that tirade, he chose to blink in slight surprise, and to blankly point out, "I don't have a wife."

"Yes I know that!" Holmes bellowed. "But you will, you fool, that is what I am telling you! You shall have a wife, and she shall be conventionally pretty in all ways, and the two of you will have three children minimum, and you shall retire whenever you please, and live out the rest of your years on the coast, and you will have _none of that_ if you throw your life away upon this completely imbecilic pursuit!"

Watson's features hardened, eyes glinting dangerously and color heating his neck and cheeks.

"How dare you!" he growled. "These men are fighting, laying their lives down for Queen and country, and you would dare to call them imbeciles?"

"I consider them to be foolish romantics who think there is any honor in willingly going to their own slaughter!" Holmes yelled in return.

"Then it seems you regard me as a foolish romantic," Watson hissed with considerable acid. "I do not go to war with the intention of dying, but if I should, at least I do so with the comfort of having done all I could for my country; not sitting at home casting aspersions on brave men I neither know nor understand."

Watson turned his back on him then, returning his attention to the suitcase he was stowing meticulously folded uniform shirts into, sifting through the material as though making sure they were all there.

"I ask that you leave now, Mr. Holmes."

It was the only time Watson had ever referred to him by name. Till then, he hadn't been sure Watson even knew what it was.

Holmes would have honestly preferred if he had called him nothing at all.

* * *

Watson was assigned to the 53rd Northumberland Fusiliers and was shipped out in the fall of that year. He landed in Kandahar, and was shortly thereafter transferred to the Berkshires. Holmes knew this, because Mycroft was more or less the British government personified, and was up on all facts and tables and numbers that went on in the entire empire, and he could drum up a name and a date in all that mess as easy as other people might ask for the butter. The elder Holmes had made some offhand comment about perhaps seeing the good doctor's ship off, but he would have none of it. If Watson was so very determined to waste his life and years of hard work and education on some sensationalized idea of noble warfare, it was really no business of Holmes'. And other than one long, suspicious look, Mycroft said nothing on the matter and let it rest. So Holmes went about his schooling as he ever had, and if he took on perhaps a greater class load than had previously been his wont, it was merely because the prospect of graduating early and starting his own career was such a pleasing one. It had nothing to do at all with the fact that now Watson was no longer at Cambridge, Holmes had no desire to remain. It was simply impatience to begin his new life as a consulting detective, and nothing more.

Come December Holmes had graduated with flying colors, and wasted no time in shaking the dust of that institution off his shoes and searching for better prospects. London was the center of the entire empire; it was the hub of crime, the starting ground for enterprise and villainy, and it was the city Holmes had always longed for. There, he could be at the heart of it all, could trace it's streets and byways like the very veins of the thriving criminal population, and cut off the flow for good and all. It was Holmes' city to the very bone.

That Mycroft was ensconced there as well was another benefit, but not one Holmes would ever truly admit to. That Mycroft was now the only tangible thing linking Holmes to Watson in any way was likewise not to be speculated on under any circumstances.

Upon first arriving in the thrumming metropolis, Holmes set up provisions in a small tenement room on Montague Street that was a mere three degrees north of derelict. It was small, poorly furnished, and did not lend itself to the dwelling of a soon-to-be respectable private consulting detective, though that was something of a moot point because Holmes found the notion of advertising his services in the daily rag to be entirely unsavory, and was otherwise somewhat clueless as to how, exactly, people found out about the existence a private consulting detective. So Holmes devoted much of his free time to learning every loose brick and clump of dirt in London with absolute precision, knowing where to go and who to ask if ever he needed certain information, and generally watching the people that resided in the vast city, observing mannerisms and differing accents, colloquial expressions and whatever slang he could pick up, widening his own range for imitation should it ever prove useful. He also filled many of his hours by commandeering the chemical laboratories at St. Bart's, much to the dismay of the actual students that held internships there. His finances were not quite as bountiful as he might have wished them to be, and in a state wherein he had no source of income, things were looking decidedly bleak. He needed a case of some sort, an intricate distraction to puzzle through, and preferably one that paid him to solve. But how did one go about attracting customers, without the debasing practice of advertising in the agonies? It was a disheartening venture to be sure.

It was around his first month in the city when the landlady – who was far more land than lady, in Holmes' opinion – banged on his door to tell him he had a visitor, for the very first time. Holmes expected several people to be there, for however unexpected the call had been. He expected a constable, perhaps one of those street urchins he'd met the day before come to see if there was any work yet, he even had a working hypothesis for why Mycroft might very well have come down from on high to inspect his younger brother in his hovel. There was only one person he did not expect it to be, and as it so happened it wasn't _him_ either, but instead it was Reginald Musgrave.

Holmes had rather thought – and slightly hoped – that he would never see the young man again after university. It was certainly a shock; that a Musgrave would ever be seen in such deplorable locales was more or less unthinkable, and probably accounted for the high-collared cloak he wore, and his top hat pulled comically low over his brow, both of which he removed once safely concealed within Holmes' room.

"Ah, Sherlock Holmes, it is a pleasure to see you again," Reginald said, and he did seem relieved, if not exactly pleased, to have found him.

"Reginald, you seem well," Holmes replied, reluctantly shaking the hand offered to him. "To what do I owe this visit?"

"You will forgive me for dropping in so suddenly, but knowing you and how you always loved problems so, I thought I could do worse than to bring this matter before your attention."

Reginald was clearly out of sorts, because he had never been one to stand much on niceties; they bored him almost as much as they annoyed Holmes. Being that he was so very vexed, there could only be two natures of the problem: money, and a matter of domestic affairs. Only wealth could have unnerved him, and only the violation of some loyal servant or sacrosanct family practice could have so thoroughly unseated him.

As it turned out, it was all of the above.

After relating the entire sad affair, which did have a surprising multitude of twists and turns – though Holmes did not believe that hidden family treasure nonsense in the least – it seemed a good investment of his admittedly overabundant free time. Plus, Reginald would pay him, and all of a sudden it didn't seem such a waste to have spent all those hours ignoring the idle chatter of an insufferable society gentleman.

"This does indeed sound like a pretty little problem, Reginald, and I shall be glad to take it up for you. What if I were to join you at your family home in a few day's time to investigate the matter further?"

"That would be excellent, Holmes, I do appreciate it, really!" the young aristocrat said effusively, clearly thinking that it hadn't been such a waste to have spent all his time with a raving lunatic.

With the assurance of aid, and an assumption that nothing could ever go amiss where his money had been judiciously applied, Reginald relaxed considerably and seemed to revert back to his old, indolent self. He also seemed obliged to stay for an extended visit, which Holmes was too polite (and too in needing of the toff's patronage) to object to. So he called down for a tea set, and took a seat in a rickety chair across the lopsided table from Reginald, who was casting a glazed eye around the squalid conditions in which Holmes survived day to day.

"Has business been slow, then?" he asked, and Holmes was reminded why he disliked Reginald so frequently.

"Yes but once word gets around that a blue-blood such as yourself benefitted from my very humble talents, I'm sure things will pick right up," Holmes replied with the vaguest nasty tinge, that he was sure Reginald would not mark, because Reginald marked very little.

The conversation followed along similar veins: Reginald's father had passed on, he had been left even more fabulously wealthy than he had originally been, he was perfectly content and utterly satisfied with his life, and Holmes was decidedly not. It was not a conversation that Holmes invested much in, but he permitted Reginald to ramble to his heart's pleasure while Holmes sipped at stale Darjeeling and wished to be rid of his company.

And then Reginald, as he always inevitably did, officially overstayed his welcome.

"Whatever became of that country boy? The one you were always so barmy over?"

There was a dual implication there that Holmes chose not to address. In fact, he'd rather not address the subject at all, and felt a slow clench of heated disapproval –and something strangely like possessiveness – in the area of his stomach at the mere mention of Watson from someone who had always held the man in such unwarranted disdain.

"I haven't the foggiest," Holmes replied as blithely as he could manage, calculating exactly to what level this conversation could escalate before he decided to hell with the case and the money, and simply threw the blighter out of his third story window.

"I find that hard to believe, Holmes," Reginald chided as though this discussion were anything other than infuriating. "I've seen the way you latch on to a riddle and never let it go; you're worse than a bullpup with a bone, worrying every little thing of interest quite to death before moving on. What I always thought strange was that you never worried the Scottish boy like you did all your other little conundrums; you were far more sporadic with your study of him, and somewhat reticent. I had always wondered why that was."

Reginald had a way of speaking and a certain slant to his gaze that somehow resulted in an implicit innuendo in almost anything he said, and this wasn't the first occasion that Holmes had noticed this; he'd seen how the man leered at Watson that day in the chemistry lab and knew instantly it was more than a mocking glance at his tanned skin (thus pitting him in a much lower economic standing than those supposed 'upright' Englishmen.) There had been an innate insidiousness in every word and gaze he'd ever directed at Watson, and it probably went a long way for explaining why Holmes cut off all ties with Reginald some time before graduating from Cambridge. But that didn't necessarily explain why he'd felt the need to do so in the first place.

"Surely what I did with my own time was, and still is, no real concern of yours, Reginald," Holmes replied, fighting tooth and nail to keep his voice some sort of unaffected.

"Of course, Holmes. But you were always a most private person; it surely lent some speculation as to what you did in all your isolation."

"You and all the rest of those vapid sots are welcome to speculate to whatever end pleases you more," Holmes bit back, turning the rather depraved conversation back on its creator, "I never did anything in isolation that I would have been ashamed to do in public, and you may take that as you will, since your mind has already come to its preconceived notions and I know there shall be no dissuading you from them."

"Oh I don't doubt that, honestly," Reginald smiled. "I wasn't suggesting you got up to any actions that could be determined at all uncouth. Merely implying that, with regards to a certain young medico, you perhaps might have wished to…explore your options more, as it were."

"Get out," Holmes said, hearing it echo in his mind across time and space from when he'd chased a nameless boy from John Watson's dorms to personally berate the man for being a fool.

Reginald arched an eyebrow at that. "I have you in my employ, if you haven't forgotten."

"And I am the only man who can solve your problem, if _you_ haven't forgotten," Holmes snarled, grey eyes flashing dangerously. "And I shan't deny that I am not what one would consider financially solvent, but I am not so destitute that I would barter away my scruples for a single tiny puzzle. This is not a hand-out, nor is it a charity case. You did not come here for any misguided benefit to myself, but because there was no one else to whom you could turn, and you know that. So I would think it wise, Mr. Musgrave, not to insult me further, lest I decide that I can damn well do without the fallen crumbs from your vast, undeserved wealth, and option to endure one more hungry night rather than be succored by your ill-humor and vile implications. You are utterly deranged if you think I would suffer it, and I assure you I shall not."

Reginald's face tensed up considerably, his eyes gone wide and slightly nervous; Holmes had never had much reason to ever truly remonstrate Reginald for anything. He had been annoyed, he had been vexed, and he had been churlish with the young Musgrave, but he had never been overtly threatening to him before. And now that Reginald could see the sort of ire Holmes was capable of – and the sort of threats he was more than willing to follow through on – he did not dare cross the man. Holmes found it a decided improvement over their relationship.

Reginald couldn't bring himself to say anything in reply, but after several moments of a tense and uncomfortable silence, he gave a firm nod and quickly excused himself from the room.

To Holmes, the room had never looked quite as magnanimous as when it was bereft of that man's presence.

* * *

Comments, as always, are appreciated ;D THANKS FOR READING!


	5. A Spark of Intrigue

Hello my dears! It's Monday again! Also, I just got a request from one of you gorgeous people actually following this monstrosity, requesting that I increase the update rate to twice a week instead of one, since I am so very near finishing the end. I don't quite know if this will please said person, because it's not technically twice in one week, but I will be posting two new sections today, back-to-back, since they follow directly after one another, and I worry some of the humor might be lost if I wait to long. So, without further ado, here's the next two parts! Enjoy!

* * *

_A Spark of Intrigue_

When the Musgrave problem was well and solved – and, yes, it did turn out to be quite unusually tricky, and there had in fact been a family treasure of some unparalleled import, considering it had been nothing less than the crown of the King of England – Holmes took his fee from Reginald and promptly bid the man fall into his own pond, and swore to never hold acquaintance with him for as long as he lived. Business had not picked up in quite the swarming masses that Holmes had flippantly hurled in Reginald's face, but there were some small puzzles here and there over the course of the next few months, meaning he had enough to pay rent, and eat the occasional sparse meal well into May. The clients were not entirely well-paying, as any Londoners of significant means would not have trucked to Montague St. unless it was of life or death importance, and clearly even then, the sacrifice was debatable. The puzzles were never incredibly difficult, either: a misplaced brooch here, a disappeared lover there, and it always ended up being the most mundane resolution, to the point Holmes honestly suspected he could be comatose and solve the puzzles. But money was money, and Holmes was really in no position to complain, though that did not stop him from doing so, anyway, and he continued to dismay of his habitat, and his lack of means, and his lack of customers, and the lack of interesting cases on a whole.

So Holmes took to wandering the streets of London once more, now as a source of distraction rather than anything to do with study, as he'd already memorized every inn and alleyway in the entire city by this time. No, now it served the purpose one might expect a close companion would: in its grey stonework and rattling carriages, there was a sort of comforting diversion. In its heavy fog and dank, cold, rainy mornings, there was a sympathetic understanding. The bustle and flow of people in the square reflected Holmes' own irrepressible mind and its perpetual workings. And its seedy, darkened underbelly echoed something within Holmes that he preferred not to ruminate on, though he couldn't deny its existence. As yet, it was undefined; a sort of murky potential deep in his nature that he had always been aware of, had always known could come about one day, and when it did it would most likely be an outcome of his own obsessive, single-minded nature. All of this he knew – it would be absurd to think it possible for him _not_ to know – and yet it was not something he ever worried on over much. He knew his sense of justice was too immutable for this nameless depravity to ever result in criminality, and he was too rational and collected to ever fall prey to a sin of the passions. It was also very possible that Holmes could live his entire life without this other nature ever finding occasion to make itself known, and he rather thought this the more likely case. But in a rare show of caution on Holmes' part, he thought it prudent to strive nonetheless to keep his mind occupied as frequently as he could, to stave off any potential unpleasant eventualities, and it was a plan that had so far worked with extensive success.

Until on one such trip into the city Holmes happened to stroll past a man wrapping fish by the docks, and as he laid out a new sheet from the front page of the _Times_, some strange twist of what others call "Fate" caused Holmes' gaze to fall on that grease-smeared page that bore the headline: **TRAGIC DEFEAT OF BERKSHIRES AT MAIWAND: HUNDREDS DEAD, MANY MORE UNACCOUNTED.**

A spike of sharpest cold speared fast and unforgiving into his gut, and Holmes gasped out as though he'd been physically struck, because he knew. In that one dreadful moment, he knew. He could see it before his very eyes; he needn't even read the rest of the news story, because the scene was unfolding in front of him as he stood there on a bitingly chill day in early spring in the middle of a crowded fish market, except it was no longer a bitingly chill day in early spring in the middle of a crowded fish market, it was now sweltering, a white-hot sun bearing down with unmitigated cruelty, the swirl of sand in the air sapping every trace of moisture from his mouth, and Holmes could feel the sweat building over his brow, could feel the give of sand beneath his feet, heard the screams and rattle of gun fire as figures emerged before him like mirages, flaring up as flames in the heat, only to be extinguished by the hail from a Ghazi rifle, watched how one such hazy image with brown hair bleached lighter from the sun, and the most remarkable blue eyes, burned away into nothingness, the sun searing through Holmes' retina, bright, inescapable, unavoidable, _true_…

Holmes blinked and the sound of an old woman haggling with the fishmonger nearby finally registered in his mind, and once more he was in the heart of London, surrounded by dripping eaves and sharp breezes and the smell of polluted fog in the air. Sweat rolled down his temples, dripping off his chin and into his collar, and he realized then that the distinct tightness in his chest and ominous black spots before his vision were due to the fact that he'd been hyperventilating for some time now. But he couldn't stop. He had no notion of how to. He thought he breathed; he'd try to, but the knowledge of how to go about it seemed to elude him, and now that it came with such difficulty, he couldn't remember how he'd ever done it before.

And there was pain. A sort of unspeakable, indescribable ache, pulsing deep in a location within himself he hadn't ever known existed, which made it all the more difficult to explain _why._ And so there was no reason, there was no solution, there was no respite, at least not here. Not on his own. But what was to be done? How could he abate it, how could he stop these sensations, stop the throbbing agony, the perpetual feel of suffocation when he had never experienced anything like it, and so had no idea how…

…There was a disreputable chemist's in Whitechapel, three blocks away. Holmes knew of several numbing agents. He knew the affects of such substances on patients experiencing considerable pain. He knew the proper doses, he knew the power of the drug, he knew the risks involved with self-prescribing, but it was all for naught. Whatever precautions he had once taken, whatever steps he' made in the effort to combat the innate, indescribable blackness in his own character shattered upon the instant in the face of his gnawing agony, and he gave his soul up for lost.

And bought the morphine anyway.

* * *

Days in.

Days out.

A daze. Permanent haze. A fog all his own.

Some days it made him twitchy. Mostly just made him calm. A shot with every sunrise. Twenty-one gun salute to the one man he'd never see again, and it shouldn't have mattered anyway, except that it did. With gnawing clarity. A vicious beast. Hungry maw. He takes another shot.

When it wears off its worse. Hears whispers in the dark, knows no one's there, and that's half the trouble, after all. No one there. No one ever will be there. Misses something that never was to begin with. Misses a dream. Misses a half-thought of notion. Misses absence.

It's when it wears off that they come. Spectres in the night, shades of villains, of cruelty, of evils old and sometimes forgotten that he never breathes a word of, now join hands with ghosts he's never seen but somehow knows too intimately. Sees him. As he used to be, in a field of green, how he was, nobly offended, vexed and concerned, muddy and bruised, tidy and well-groomed and all those perfectly folded shirts, obliterated for an eternity by iron and combustion and fire.

He takes another shot. And another. And however many it takes so he will no longer have to smell gunpowder on his fingertips, or feel sand in his mouth.

He forgets what food tastes like.

And one day, or no day, he's on the street, walking, and he doesn't know how he's gotten there or when or why, when something large and black rattles up beside him, and he intends to keep walking, but something grabs him, and he hears, "Get in this hansom _now_, Sherlock," growled at him like a bear, and he has just enough time to wonder _Who the Devil is Sherlock?_ before he is lifted and dragged into the large black thing, and the rattling keeps up.

And then he goes black too.

Finally.

* * *

Holmes had never before had a fire axe imbedded in his skull and then wiggled about, but he rather thought he had a notion of what the sensation could entail. He supposed there was pain involved, but if there was, it was of such an all-encompassing intensity that it faded into the background in favor of more acute feelings, such as a deep and wrenching nausea. He also was not entirely certain where his eyes were located, because if they had been in his head where they belonged, then surely he would be capable of opening them. Instead he felt futile fluttering against what he supposed were his cheekbones, a frustrated tension straining through muscles the consistency of pulled taffy soaked in water, and then surrender. He didn't know where he was, had no clue what he'd been doing, or even if any of that mattered. He was very seriously questioning whether he still in fact lived when there was a curious noise from somewhere nearby. He focused, or tried to, and before long the sound repeated itself. Almost a groan. Or a _creak_. Was someone there? Did that mean Holmes was not dead? Where was he?

A soft _scratch_, and then quiet puffs. A familiarly acrid scent graced his olfactory glands, and he knew, though he could not comprehend. How the Devil had he –

"Yes, I knew about it, you great prat!" a voice growled, and the sound of it was weary and hoarse and conjured the image of a large black something rattling up beside him and a firm hand in his shirt, pulling him into its dark depths.

_Mycroft_.

"I do read newspapers, you know, it has something of a dramatic impact on my job!" The elder Holmes had barreled on, unaware or uncaring of his brother's slow grasp of things. "And of course I remembered where he'd been stationed, and of course when I read the headlines I knew you would have jumped to some horrendous conclusion, and yes, I even had deduced that you would do something outrageously foolish as a result, but I admit brother mine, you have utterly exceeded even my meticulously plotted expectations!"

It somehow hadn't sounded much like a compliment.

"That's because it was _not_!"

Holmes had forgotten his brother could read his mind. Or near to it, in any event.

"Honestly, Sherlock, _morphine_? You were so completely addled that you dosed yourself to the gills with morphine? Do you have any idea how long you have been insensible? You stopped breathing, damn it, the local physician had to inject you with a solution of cocaine to combat the sedative affect of your previous choice of poison so that your lungs would keep functioning!"

There was a strain and a tightness to Mycroft's tone that Holmes was sure he'd never heard before, and it pained him. That he could even feel pain was a surprise indeed, as it had been an immeasurable amount of time since he'd felt anything at all.

But there was no accusation in the older brother's tone, although there was an undercurrent of residual desperation, and an implied question, prodding, worried, scared.

"He…" Holmes started, his mouth lax, tongue lazy, throat dry. "He's gone."

It was all he could rustle out, the only explanation he could give, the only reason why that he had. There was no reason beyond that.

Stunned silence followed this pronouncement, and another low creak sounded as Mycroft no doubt shifted position in whatever unfortunate piece of furniture now bore his girth.

"And that is why you've reduced yourself to this? When was the last time you ate? Bathed? Done anything at all? Did you decided to simply give up? To abandon all your life, simply because -"

"He's gone, Mycroft!" Holmes cried with more volume than he thought he was capable of, eyes flying wide, and they were in fact in his head, because when he turned to the side, there was Mycroft in a chair by the bed, looking exhausted and older than Holmes could ever recall. With a sigh, he relaxed back into the pillow he could barely feel. "There didn't seem to be anything else… I'd never…" he trailed off, eyes catching a tiny dust mote as it passed through a stream of sunlight from a window.

"You had never felt like this before, and you knew not how to cope with it," Mycroft supplied.

"Quite correct."

Mycroft heaved a heavy sigh of his own, grey eyes watching Holmes' profile for a moment, before looking down at the bedclothes. "I should have tracked you down sooner," he murmured quietly. "I knew you would do something idiotic, but I had thought you would have come to me before making an utter ruin of yourself."

Holmes merely blinked, could feel the barest trace of the stuff in his blood still, could feel how his heart pulsed in a way that seemed too artificial to be entirely under his control, and nothing felt quite solid enough. It all had the consistency of airy mush, trickling through a sieve either too big or too small to be seen. His vision swam. The air tasted wrong: like nothing at all, but that may simply be him.

Mycroft was talking to him again, but it was all noise, an indistinct buzz, smoky from the lit pipe that sat forgotten in a large flipper of a hand, and Holmes felt his molecules drifting away. There were ghosts in these waters. He had to tread carefully. He just didn't know how to.

Didn't know how to cope. Should have gone to Mycroft. Mycroft would know. He would have known. He had known. Had known Holmes would see it, had known Holmes would jump to a horrendous conclusion, had known he would do something foolish, had known…

_Jump to a horrendous conclusion…_? Holmes' brain was not quite what it usually was, which tended to be actual matter as opposed to the fumes that now filled up his skull, but that statement of his brother's seemed to him…suggestive. Something was not right, Mycroft was not sympathetic enough in his demeanor, seemed not to understand, which didn't seem right considering what Holmes had lost, though even he wasn't certain on that point precisely, and yet the reaction to his reaction was off…

…bloody hell…

"Half a moment, Mycroft!" Holmes said suddenly, forestalling his brother's diatribe with an urgent, upheld hand that didn't feel connected to him in any way, "What did you say about conclusions?"

Mycroft jumped back to the beginning of this exchange as easily as one might turn a page. "I said I knew that when you read the paper's headlines, you would jump to a horrendous conclusion."

Holmes nodded. "That particular diction and word choice would therefore denote that the horrendous conclusion I had reached was not necessarily an accurate one, correct?" He was suddenly rather breathless, his heart rate picking up dramatically, although this time he was confident it was all of his own doing. "Is that correct, Mycroft?"

Something soft passed over Mycroft's rounded and usually stern visage, and he sighed again. "Yes, Sherlock, you would be correct."

All breath was expelled from Holmes' body in a single, grateful rush, sinking into the mattress as though he would become one with it. "Thank God," he whispered, closing his eyes. "Thank God."

Mycroft snorted. "You don't believe in God, you heretical whelp." There was an unmistakable fondness in the remark however, and Holmes felt himself relax further.

"Where is he?" he asked instead, voice still shaky from disuse and other things he would prefer not to think about.

"I don't know, as of yet. Maiwand was such a comprehensive failure, and the result is that things have become a bit hectic. I know he was not among the death-toll, and reports have made it quite clear that he was one of several to have been shipped back to India for medical attention, but I do not know where in India they were sent, nor the extent of his injuries. I should have more information by the time the week is out."

Holmes thought he might have nodded, though he couldn't know for certain.

"Thank you, brother dearest. It means more to me than I can say."

"I believe that_. _In fact, I believe it is the only subject on which you are incapable of speaking."

"Most probably," Holmes said in a tired whisper. "I do apologize, Mycroft, but…"

"Of course. I will leave you to your rest, _mon petite frère_."

The chair creaked again something terrible, and Holmes thought, in a dazed fancy, that a large, dry hand passed over his head, smoothing raven hair back as it lifted away, but the next second he heard the press of heavy feet against the floor boards and the click of a door, and knew Mycroft had left him in peace.

And as a tranquility more complete than any drug could induce settled into his watery bones, Holmes breathed one more sigh of relief, and drifting off to sleep once more.

Things were far from over, after all.

* * *

The morphine never entirely stopped being a habit, much to Mycroft's unspoken dismay, and the stimulating effect of the cocaine proved a remarkable, albeit extreme measure which Holmes could turn to in order to assuage the _ennui_ he had been suffering prior to his complete breakdown. This seemed to unnerve his brother even more than the morphine, since it was through Mycroft's physician that Holmes had even been introduced to the drug, but he knew that there was very little he could do to change his younger sibling's mind once it had been decisively made. So it was that a small, Morocco case found a place upon Holmes' slightly teetering mantle piece at Montague St., with two distinctly labeled bottles of clear liquid, and a single syringe. And despite the fact that Holmes knew all was not completely lost, there were still lingering tendrils of pain that would clench periodically in his chest, and after all, Holmes' career couldn't afford distraction of any sort, and that of the emotional mien was in every way abhorrent to him. It was illogical and useless, and if it continued to persist, Holmes would take whatever measures necessary to kill it in due course. The notion that this particular source of disturbance had become something like periodic was a great cause for concern, but Holmes pushed forward as best he knew how, delving into whatever problems he could get, regardless of pay; he was no longer picky in the least. So long as images of maimed bodies and men broken beyond repair ceased to waver before him like a living nightmare, he cared not what the nature of comfort was.

True to his words, Mycroft contacted Holmes by the time the week had ended with what news he was able to gather. The telegram ran thus:

HAVE DETERMINED LOCATION OF YOUR DOCTOR STOP. HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED TO BRITISH ARMS HOSPITAL IN PESHAWAR STOP. NATURE OF INJURIES STILL UNKNOWN STOP. TENTATIVE DEPLOYMENT BACK TO LONDON IN TWO MONTH'S TIME END STOP.

M.H.

Holmes read it once, then crumpled it into a heap and made to throw it in the fireplace, then quickly flattened it out and read it once more before ultimately stowing it in his inside waistcoat pocket. It was a ridiculously sentimental thing to do, and he would take time later to be properly disgusted with himself, but the absolutely absurd rush of some unnameable and energizing sensation caused him to postpone it for the moment. Instead, he threw on his best coat, hat, and grabbed his favorite walking stick, and trekked out to Regent's Park. It happened to be a dreadfully wet and dreary day, but Holmes was unable to see the gloom for the haze of exuberance he felt at nothing at all, and decided it was a lovely day simply for the amusement of being contrary. Such simple pleasures he hadn't known since he was a small boy, and even then fairly infrequently. He liked not to think on why it should occur now, but it was getting harder and harder to skirt around the subject, as it happened to be returning home in roughly eight weeks. He'd need some sort of plan by then.


	6. A Second Meeting

And here's the next part! I promise it actually starts getting interesting after this point XD.

* * *

_A Second Meeting_

Two months had passed and Holmes, unsurprisingly, had no plan. He flitted from room to room in his brother's expansive country estate in Chichester – where he had been staying ever since another drug-induced scare three weeks earlier convinced Mycroft that he couldn't trust his younger brother with his own life – alternating between rapid and meticulous plotting and a wrenching feel of helplessness. Because what could he do, honestly? On the days leading up to the designated return of a certain ship from Bombay, Holmes had been subjected to a continual revisiting of every encounter he'd ever had with John Watson, which numbered only four in a literal sense, and came to the unalterable conclusion that they had no relationship whatsoever. Nothing bound them, nothing drew them together as natural companions, and therefore planning out his actions for the doctor's return was utterly pointless, since he had no reason to seek the man out, and said man had no reason to anticipate or even accept a visit from him. There was absolutely and completely nothing.

"Well you rather saw to that personally, did you not, brother?" Mycroft asked from over that morning's edition of the _Times_ while Holmes continued his pacing.

The sudden intrusion into his thoughts, coupled with the annoying accuracy of the observation, brought the detective up short, and he rounded on the man with a peevish snarl.

"I am perfectly aware of that, Mycroft, I simply…"

But he did not know what he simply. There was nothing to be said, and that unnerved him more than anything.

The older Holmes sighed heavily and folded the paper down to better regard his brother.

"You did not want friendship, if you will recall. In fact, I daresay you went to all efforts to avoid such a thing occurring to you."

Holmes clenched his teeth. "I realize that, Mycroft."

"Then why now?" the larger man asked, a certain frustration in his voice which spoke not to a lack of understanding on his part, but more at Holmes' own continued lack of understanding.

"And I suppose you know the answer already, do you not?"

Mycroft sniffed slightly, shifting in his seat before the fire that blazed low and welcoming. "I have some theories," he murmured, and Holmes suddenly felt a very keen sense of solidarity with his own hapless clients.

"Do you wish to share them with me?" was the aggravated question next voiced.

"Not at the present, no," Mycroft said, grabbing his tea from a small table beside him and taking a dismissive sip.

Holmes' hands clenched into fists at his sides. "And when, pray tell, do you believe you shall deign to enlighten me?"

"When you've enlightened yourself."

"Do leave off impersonating an Oriental philosopher, Mycroft, it is a rather repugnant look on a staid and uninteresting Englishman."

"You are charming, certainly," the elder brother growled slightly, before setting his cup down once more and aiming a very pointed look at Holmes. "I refrain from explaining your conundrum, Sherlock, for the very fact that I have all confidence you will eventually work out the truth for yourself. I know how much you relish the dramatic reveal, brother dearest, and I should hate to rob you of such an opportunity."

Holmes would deny pouting at that moment to his grave.

"You are mocking me, I'm sure of it."

"Well, I am the eldest; think it as something of a prerogative," Mycroft said with a rare, mischievous smile.

Holmes felt the corner of his mouth twitch in response. Then he let out a weighted sigh, shoulders relaxing as some of his nervous tension dissipated.

"What am I to do, then?" he murmured quietly.

"Whatever it is that you want to do, brother mine."

Therein lay the problem. When it came to John Watson, Holmes had never known what he wanted. Too many things, it seemed, and he was strangely incapable of making up his mind.

"Start off slow, then," Mycroft said softly. "You want to see him at least, correct? Be at the dock to greet his ship when it comes in tomorrow. You need not say anything to him, if you prefer. Simply observe. You can decide from there what further measures to take."

Holmes nodded silently, mind whirring with innumerable possibilities and outcomes and worries and fears, but Mycroft squeezed his arm briefly, and he breathed deeply once more, and set about consulting his wardrobe for the coming encounter.

* * *

It was a rainy, seasonable day in late June when Holmes found himself on the docks, surrounded by a crowd of people all babbling excitedly. Men shifting anxiously from foot to foot, children hopping up and down, women chattering to one another with bright, sometimes tear-filled eyes, all awaiting the arrival of a brother or a husband or a father or a son. The fact that the assembled group could not have numbered more than fifty took Holmes a bit by surprise, but when the boat finally chugged slowly up to the pier, it became clear why. As dockhands rushed up, wheeling the loading plank up to the open rail of the ship's side, there was some clear movement along the deck as the returned soldiers moved into position to disembark. When the first sunburned, weary man stepped out on the plank, fresh metals gleaming bright on his starched military jacket, the crowd erupted in applause, and a hysterical woman rushed up to meet him halfway, two small children trailing after her, wailing.

Clearly, this man was not Watson, but it was clear from the few bobbing heads Holmes could just make out still moving across the ship's deck, there were perhaps twenty men in total that had returned that day, compared to the hundreds that had fought and lost their lives.

More men came down the plank, family rushing to them with unrestrained glee, cheering and laughter and sobs and declarations of love permeating the air, only to drift steadily quiet as the war-beaten men were quickly led back to the comfort of the homes they had left behind. Soon there were but a handful of people still milling around, conversing with old friends or too insensible with emotion to move from the dock quite yet. Holmes grew unaccountably nervous; he had not seen Watson. It was impossible to think he had somehow evaded Holmes' gaze, and been lost in the crowd, but he hadn't emerged from the ship yet, and Mycroft had _sworn_ he would be in this deployment, and yet –

A steady, careful _step-stepclomp_ met his ears just then, and with a sudden onslaught of something, Holmes looked back to the plank, praying for the first time in his life to a God he didn't believe in that the wait would finally be over.

And it was. John Watson stood briefly, head bowed, grip tight on a tough, oak walking stick, uniform decorated like all the others, but distinctly loose on his clearly emaciated frame. He was browned, but decidedly grey, left shoulder held in a stiff, unnatural position, and most of his weight was borne on the right leg. He took a deep breath, schooled his features, and then proceeded to walk down the plank to the pier below, limping quite obviously and moving with the kind of slow, methodical pace of someone who no longer trusts their limbs to do what they are supposed to.

Holmes wasn't quite sure how to categorize the reaction he felt to this sight. His entire insides seem to have been electrified and then set to boil, he was hot and chilled all at the same time, and the very noticeable heat emanating from his face seemed to suggest he was blushing. He felt like running. He felt like screaming. He felt like leaping in the air as an excited child might, or dashing forward and crushing the ridiculous man in a fierce embrace. He also entertained the idea of hitting the man square in the jaw for causing him so much grief and restlessness and utter confusion. But he had dutifully resigned himself to simple study today; Holmes had sequestered himself in a small, nondescript corner of the dock near some packing crates in an effort to avoid drawing anyone's attention. He would watch, for now, and he would comfort himself with the knowledge that John Watson was alive and whole, if not entirely well, and he would return to Chichester and Mycroft, and continue to brood on what he should do with all this jumbled mess in his head.

That was the plan, in any event. But as he continued to watch, drinking in every detail, every twist of motion, every pull of muscle, every crinkle of fabric, the cautious and unsure movements at such extreme odds with the confidence once displayed on a rugby field on a fine day in October years ago that it pulled Holmes' mind in too many directions to comprehend, it finally dawned on him that something wasn't quite right. Watson walked up to an attendant, sheepish look in place as he accepted a canvas valise the man held out to him, a similar one to what Holmes had witnessed every other soldier carrying on their own, and after nodding his thanks he turned slowly around, taking stock of the pier and no doubt processing what Holmes had just become aware of.

There was no one else on the dock. No family had come to welcome him back, no friends were there to comfort him and ask him for adventure stories. Watson was alone. And it confused Holmes. It was entirely possible that the man's parents had died at some point earlier in his life, but he had a brother, Holmes knew this, he'd seen the man himself. Andrew was his name, if memory served, and Holmes was growing steadily more confused and somewhat irrationally angry to see the older Scot wasn't present. He couldn't locate with any precision the exact reason for this feeling of anger directed at a man he didn't know, on behalf of a man he knew only slightly more, but there was a notion in the back of Holmes' head that merely stated, in no uncertain terms, that John Watson was not the sort of man who deserved to be alone. And so, he determined, Watson would not be alone.

It was simply the poor man's misfortune that the only person he had right now was Sherlock Holmes.

Holmes darted out from behind his cover then, moving swiftly towards the ex-soldier who had begun a painstaking hobble towards the main road, no doubt in search of a hansom cab. Where the man would go was largely unclear, but Holmes assumed the Queen had granted these battered men some sort of pension, and accommodations for those who had no family. It was this thought primarily that fed the fledgling plan now formulating in Holmes' mind, although typically he preferred having more than ten seconds to think all the possibilities through before enacting it.

Without any idea as to the wisdom of his decision, Holmes marched forward, easily overtaking the slightly hunched figure in front of him, reached a long, pale hand out, and wrapped it kindly but firmly around the arm that held the valise, and said in what he hoped was a calm and pleasant tone (which was probably closer to hoarse and desperate), "Dr. Watson, I presume?"

The man froze, Holmes could feel the muscles under his hand tensing up, everything going slightly rigid. He took a few deep, calming breaths, and then shifted his cane, very carefully turning around, and Holmes' felt like his lungs were going to explode with the illogical anxiety welling inside him. Watson faced him, taking another minute breath before finally looking up, and there were blue eyes again, and Holmes felt like he could see for the first time in nearly a year. But the face those eyes were set in did not smile guilelessly, as it had in some of Holmes' better memories; his skin was a dark brown, darker than ever it had been from prolonged and extreme exposure to the sun, the protrusion of cheekbones standing out in painfully sharp relief, cheeks hollowed, lines of worry and care now etched into what had at one time been a smooth forehead, and there was a permanent, though subtle tilt to the way he now stood. But what truly jarred him, what hit Holmes like a particularly vicious jab in the gut, was the look of vaguely haunted despair in the back of those blue eyes. He had seen terrible things, he had experienced terrible things, he had been required to do terrible things, and he had been hurt, dreadfully hurt, in more ways than one, and Holmes felt a chasm in his chest open up.

Watson blinked then, as though he couldn't quite believe it, and breathed, "Holmes."

Something inside the chasm wriggled at the sound of his name in Watson's voice. He ignored it.

"Where are you off to? I did not know you had relations in London." He was not proud of the roundabout way in which he was conducting things, nor of the pain it would no doubt cause, but he did not wish to draw overt attention to Watson's very obvious lack of any company. He wanted to give the poor man the opportunity to lie to him, if he could have nothing else.

Predictably, Watson's head bowed. "No, I don't. I was on my way to the Strand in fact to procure a room, until my health picks up enough to move elsewhere."

No mention of family, or of going home to Scotland. Clearly he no longer counted them as options, and Holmes had a renewed desire to find this elusive Andrew Watson and beat him into unconsciousness.

"My elder brother, Mycroft, has a fairly sizeable country estate in Chichester," he blurted, with no segue whatsoever, and he wasn't very pleased with his lack of eloquence in that moment. "It would make an ideal place to recuperate, if you were at all acquiescent to returning there with me."

Watson said not a word for a very long minute. Instead, his eyes studied Holmes intently, wondering too many things, chiefly among them no doubt being why this barmy fool Watson had once known occasionally at university was here, how he knew when his ship would be getting in, and why he felt the need to offer an invitation to a stranger's home to convalesce after they had not seen each other in months. None of this would Watson ever vocalize, however, he was far too polite and proper to do anything of the sort, but his eyes let Holmes know quite unequivocally that he was very confused, and would try his utmost to puzzle this anomaly out.

What he said, however, was, "I don't think I could possibly impose on someone I've never met before," in a slow, thoughtful tone, blue eyes observing Holmes with a deep scrutiny that he did nothing to hide.

Holmes waved his hand dismissively. "Not at all. Brother Mycroft has a very important though underappreciated job at Whitehall, and when he discovered that I knew one of the men being shipped out to Afghanistan, he made it a point to apprise me of the goings on to the best of his abilities. He bid me offer you a room, if you had no other options available."

"I wonder how he would know I had no other options available," Watson mused with one raised eyebrow.

Holmes fought not to clear his throat nervously. He was making a hash of things, and it had been an utterly idiotic thing to do in the first place, he hadn't properly evaluated the situation at all before he plunged in, and there was no reason for Watson to wish to stay secluded in the country with no one but the Holmes brothers for company, he would be mad to desire so, but still…Holmes could not stop himself from making the offer in any event. It was better than thinking of the doctor alone in an impersonal hotel, in a city he's never been, where he knows no one, and could perhaps relapse into illness at any time. Holmes would never get anything done, and he was sick to death of these annoying distractions.

"It was merely a supposition on his part," Holmes improvised. "He enjoys things being plotted out to the minutest detail, and he charged me with the task of extending an invitation to you if it appeared you were in need of lodgings."

"But I am not, you see. I have a fairly modest pension, after all, and I suppose it is to be put towards my finding a roof over my head."

Holmes couldn't help the wry smile that crept across his face. "That is true, but wouldn't you prefer to save that money, and live somewhere free of charge?"

Watson blinked, apparently having thought he'd be required to pay rent of a sorts, and if Mycroft insisted he do so – that is if Mycroft doesn't throw them both out after hearing what Holmes has done – he would gladly pay the sum on the doctor's behalf. He refused to think of why.

Watson continued to watch him, expression inscrutable, and it was very easily the longest period of solid eye-contact they had ever had. The smaller man was clearly suspicious, as well he ought to be, because Holmes was generally considered a Bedlamite on his best days, and he honestly held no delusions that Watson would ever actually agree to this bizarre and unprecedented show of solidarity, but he couldn't help but hope –

"All right, then," Watson said haltingly, frowning a bit. "I suppose it…well, it would certainly be the more frugal option, surely…I mean, that is, I do hate to intrude in any way, and if I become a nuisance I shall of course remove myself forthwith, and I do apologize in advance for any inconvenience my—my current condition might bring about, though I am very much obliged, at your offer, that is, I -"

" – It shall be fine, I assure you," Holmes cut him off, the hand that still grasped the man's arm squeezing slightly in an attempt at comfort. "I have a hansom waiting already, if you'll simply follow me this way, and we shall be at brother Mycroft's estate in roughly two and three-fourths hours."

Watson's frown never entirely abated, thought he did finally leave off gaping slightly open-mouthed at Holmes, which was a decided improvement over the situation. With a smile the likes of which he had never quite felt upon his own face before, Holmes reached down to retrieve the man's valise, and began walking at a lively yet measured pace towards the street where his cab was waiting. He heard Watson splutter slightly.

"I can carry my own bag, I'll have you know!" he finally cried, embarrassed outrage coloring his tone.

He was an exceptionally prideful man, but Holmes knew that already, had known that for years, and so was able to adjust the discussion accordingly.

"Oh, I have no doubt on that point," Holmes called cheerfully over his shoulder, "but you see, several of these good people still hovering around the dock have been watching us, and with a considerable amount of distaste, as well. They will surely think me a cad if I do not render my services to a brave soldier recently returned home, and so I beg you allow me to maintain my good social standing, there's a fellow."

Some mutinous muttering followed that pronouncement, but Watson submitted to Holmes' absurdity with minimal protests, having been given the chance to interpret the situation not as a consideration for his very apparent handicap and discomfort, but rather as a favor for Holmes. Though he didn't know the good doctor in any way approaching a deep and personal sense, Holmes did have a basic understanding of how Watson generally acted towards his fellow man, and if that debacle of a rugby match back in Cambridge had taught Holmes anything, it was that John Watson was more concerned about others than he was himself. It was not a condition that Holmes fully comprehended, as it seemed diametrically opposed to the logic of self-preservation, but he could understand, in a way, the notion that there is something greater than the self that one would dedicate themselves to. That that greater something for Watson was all of humanity, however, seemed a bit ridiculous.

Holmes reclaimed his cab, holding the door open and pretending to observe some piece of trash on the street so Watson could climb slowly into the carriage without being watched, and then handed the man his valise before climbing up after him. As the driver whipped the horses into motion and the carriage began rattling away down the street, the notion of a potentially awkward silence presented itself. To combat this unpleasant inevitability, Holmes simply threw a switch of sorts in his brain, and began talking _ad nauseum_ about all the flora he recalled seeing in the Scottish countryside, which eventually led to a discussion of the type of wood used to craft violins, to the intricate _arpeggios_ of one of Mendelssohn's more famous pieces, and then somehow alighting on a monologue of the various means by which bees mimic organized society. Watson said not a word, merely watching Holmes with a stunned expression that ultimately settled into a look of bemusement. This carried on for the majority of the trip to Mycroft's estate, and it was around the time that Holmes was discussing the subtle differences between cigar ashes of the West Indies that he happened to glance over at Watson, only to discover the war-battered man had fallen asleep against his side of the cab. Holmes drifted into silence then, a small smile upon his lips while the chasm in his chest softened vaguely around the edges.

* * *

I think despite the double update, I'll still upload another part later in the week, just because the next sections sort of follow right on the heels of one another, and it might make the pacing awkward if I go too long without uploading them. This is what I get for trying to pace a fic that was written as a one-shot. An incredibly, obscenely long one-shot -_-;


	7. A Kind Gesture

So everything's been pretty stable, right? A fairly steady 7-8 pages per section. Now? BAM! 17 pages. I don't know how these things happen, either. Hope you enjoy! XD

* * *

_A Kind Gesture_

To say that Mycroft was surprised at the unexpected house guest that had turned up with Holmes was not entirely accurate, as the elder brother had a habit of forming an unlimited number of contingency plans, based wholly on the potential whims that may seize his younger brother at any given time. To say that Mycroft was happy, however, was another story altogether.

"I don't see why you brought him back here with you!" Mycroft hissed, while one of the footmen was busy showing Watson a room on the ground floor to spare him the trauma of staircases.

"He has a very fixed income at this point, and his depressed state of mind is not conducive to rational thought. There is no telling what would become of the money, and at the moment it is all he has to live on," Holmes shot back, arms crossed and shoulders hunched in barely restrained anger.

"If you are so worried over the states of his finances, take him back to Montague St. with you," Mycroft bit back.

"Oh yes, brother, genius!" Holmes cried, flinging his hands wildly in the air. "Montague's bedroom and sitting room are one and the same! I can barely turn around in there when another person is occupying the space, how the Devil do you expect me to keep him in any sort of comfort there? Besides, unless I am much mistaken, he has recently recovered from a serious illness, and we both know the country is the best location for his continued improvement. The bustling city is no place for him just yet."

"And he has no relations? None whatsoever?"

Holmes gritted his teeth. "He has a brother, I simply don't know his whereabouts."

"Well, hunt him up and see if he will take care of him," Mycroft said dismissively, returning to the luncheon the younger sibling was rather rudely interrupting. Holmes thought it absurd to get so upset over it, as the massive man would be eating again in but three short hours.

At the offhanded suggestion, however, Holmes tensed up further, replaying in his mind the one and only time he had seen the Watson brothers interact. He growled low; even if he knew where the fiend was, even if he'd been there to meet Watson that afternoon, Holmes would have still whisked the doctor off if he'd been able to.

Mycroft sighed. "Is he truly that horrible?"

"I don't know, I've never shared words with him."

"Is he horrible enough?"

"Yes."

Another world-weary sigh. "All right then, Sherlock. I daresay, the doctor will be a considerably less obnoxious tenant than you have proven to be."

Holmes let out a relieved breath that he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. "Thank you, brother mine. If you require any compensation, a rent perhaps, from either of us, I will be happy to reimburse -"

"Do cease all of your nonsense, if you will be so kind," Mycroft said sharply just then. "We may not have what society would consider the warmest relationship, Sherlock, but I would hope you thought well enough of me to know I can do a fair turn by my own brother, without the necessity for monetary compensation. I am doing you a favor; I suggest you not insult me on top of it all."

Holmes bowed his head in a rare show of meekness, properly chastened and slightly ashamed. "My apologies, Mycroft. Of course I did not mean to imply anything of the sort. I merely wish not to make a burden of myself on you."

"You burden me with your lack of self-regard, Sherlock, not by your presence," the elder said, stern tone still in place, though a particular fondness was present in his grey eyes.

"I realize that," was all Holmes would say on the matter, implied though it had been.

A brief silence pervaded the quiet sitting room where Mycroft had been supping near a gentle fire, both brothers now turning their thoughts inward for the moment. At length, Mycroft set his knife and fork down, pushing his empty plate away from him, and said, "Be sure to invite your doctor to dinner, Sherlock," before standing and moving from the room.

And so John Watson took up a tentative residence at the Holmes estate in Chichester. He remained sequestered to his bedroom for the majority of the first week, sleeping as best he could and taking relatively little food. This worried Holmes extensively, and he hounded the serving girl for news of why the doctor so frequently turned his meals away.

"Oi dunno, sir," she said briskly after an hour's worth of badgering. "Oi fink he's 'ad a bug, ifn' yew know wot Oi mean."

"A bug of what sort, Abby?" Holmes demanded, having lost his patience by then.

The girl rounded on him then, blunt and rough-worn finger jabbed into his chest. "'Ee's a decent bloke, that doctor, an' yew ain't gonna bother 'im, Mistah Holmes! 'Ee's been used rough, 'ee has, and there'll be Devil to pay if Oi find out yew's been dissectin' 'im any!"

"I wouldn't dissect a living human!" he declared, truthfully alarmed by the girl's insinuation.

She rolled her eyes at him. "'Ee's not an experiment, Mistah Holmes. 'Ee needs rest. When 'ee's up an' about, try talkin' to 'im, instead of harryin' me! 'Ee won' bite, sir. But Oi will, ifn' yew don' leave me be!"

Holmes did his best to cope out there in the country, where there was relatively little to do, and his mind was forever swirling around all the different ways this situation could possibly fail, and what in God's name he had been thinking when he'd all but dragged the doctor home with him. It was madness, now that he had the time to study the matter, and yes it made sense to have done so, in a certain way, but when taken into account with the fact that he and Watson did not know each other, and had never been overly fond of one another, it seemed honestly the daftest thing Holmes had done in his life to date. Mycroft agreed with this assessment, and informed Holmes of this on every occasion he could manage.

"You're an utter imbecile," was the expression most frequently used, and by the dawning of the second week, Holmes simply endeavored to ignore his elder brother, with varying degrees of success.

Holmes took extended walks, memorizing every blade of grass of all the land surrounding the estate, as well as making regular visits into the nearest town, disguising himself as farm hands and ostlers and travelling salesmen in an experiment of the effectiveness of his current costume repertoire. Occasionally little problems would crop up, but none that did his singular talents any justice, and all of which merely served to vex him further, rather than assuage what he refused to acknowledge – but was nonetheless – a rather chronic case of worry.

It wasn't until perhaps two or three days into the second week that Holmes even saw Watson again. The man seemed slightly less world-weary as he moved carefully into the day room and the place that had been laid out for him at the breakfast table. He did not sit immediately, however, instead moving up to the head of the table where Mycroft sat and gave him a slight bow, shifting his hands as though he couldn't decide whether offering one would be rude.

"I really cannot thank you enough, Mr. Holmes, for your hospitality," he began, cheeks vaguely blushing in embarrassment, "Surely your patience is considerable if you are willing to put up with an invalid such as myself, and I truly hope I do not wear on it. If such is the case, be assured that I will take myself away as soon as possible; I would hate to make an inconvenience of myself to you in anyway."

Holmes and Mycroft somewhat gawked at the doctor after his very formal speech, and it made the poor man squirm a bit. But Mycroft diffused the situation as only a politician could, waving a large flipper of a hand as though to knock away Watson's beseeching words.

"Think nothing of it, my good man. It is the least I could do for a defender of this fine country," and Holmes was relieved and a little taken aback to find that his brother was being absolutely truthful. "And you are no inconvenience, I assure you. You're a far cry more tolerable than my sibling, I'll have you know."

Watson coughed slightly, whether in mirth or surprise was unclear, but Holmes assumed it was a bit of both.

Holmes did not pout.

"Do sit down, doctor," he said, turning to Watson. "If you permit him to, brother Mycroft will regale you for hours untold on all the intricacies of our childhood, and certainly we can all be spared that," he finished with a leveled glare that did not stir Mycroft in the slightest.

A quick grin flashed across Watson's slightly haggard face, but the warmth from the gesture relaxed the nervous tension there considerably. That Holmes could have produced such a thing made whatever had taken up residence in his chest-chasm wriggle and move, and Holmes quickly looked back at his plate.

Breakfast reigned then in an unusual silence, and so it was for a time after Watson moved in; he remained largely confined to himself, although he would move about the house and take up residence in the library, reading any number of books on a variety of topics, from romance to adventure, to brushing up on the medical publications of the last few months. He did not engage the brothers in conversation much at first, which could be attributed to his recent trauma and their general lack of approachability, although he would sit silently in their presence, smoking a cigarette and staring out a window while they discussed the politics of deepest Africa, sometimes watching them with unrestrained awe and amusement as they bantered back and forth in their familiar, though frequently biting manner.

Around the third week, Holmes noticed the doctor extracting a small pocket notebook in which he began writing with a contained sort of fervor, and he was gratified to see the doctor finally showing a sign of excitement and engagement in something, even if it was still maintained in his own personal sphere. In fact, he felt a fairly powerful urge to discover what it was Watson wrote about when his whole frame suddenly froze as he watched Holmes and Mycroft argue, crushing his cigarette and whipping out the small notebook and a pencil as though the thoughts that had just seized him would drift away like water through a sieve if he did not get them down on paper fast enough. He would not ask however, it would be unforgivably rude. He also would not endeavor to secret away the notebook when the doctor had left it absent-mindedly on a side table, because that would be downright deplorable. He would not. He would not. He would –

"Sherlock, put that down this instant," Mycroft said lazily, not even bothering to look up from the very official-looking document he had been annotating.

Holmes jerked back from the little book he'd been about to swipe, glaring.

"I haven't any idea what you are talking about."

"Of course you don't."

The room was once more wrapped in silence.

Broken by Mycroft's harsh, "Sherlock, I will not tell you again!"

"Honestly, Mycroft, you are a veritable Tartar!" Holmes cried, arms thrown up in a fit of agitation, marching away from the object of allure and beginning to pace jerkily, keeping himself away from the book with visual difficulty.

"If you are so desperate for a distraction, go find one of your little problems to solve," the elder offered, scratching the nib of his pen through several lines of the document.

Holmes huffed in a manner that was not at all reminiscent of a child. "I would, if country folk appeared to have any!"

"Surely someone in this town has misplaced their wagons or cattle or children. Get out and locate them. Quickly. As fast as you may."

"If it were that simple, I would do so with all haste, I assure you! You seem to think these bedraggled people stand on street corners with signs advertising their distress!"

"They call them agony columns, Sherlock, and they are there for a reason."

"And I have read them all!" Holmes raved, turning on his brother with sheer madness coloring his tone.

"Er…I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" a wry yet hesitant voice asked just then, and both brothers turned to see the doctor standing at the sitting room's door, peering at them cautiously.

Holmes opened his mouth to excuse their behavior when Mycroft overrode him.

"Not at all, Doctor, I was merely keeping my brother from temptation. I believe the Scripture advises us to do so from time to time, if I am not much mistaken," he said with a sly glance towards the younger sibling.

It was a rare day when Holmes was fairly well convinced that he hated his brother.

Today was such a day.

Watson glanced between the two of them curiously, mouth opening to no doubt voice a query of what, precisely, Mycroft meant by such a statement, when his blue eyes glanced just behind Holmes and realized the precarious position his notebook was currently in. Expression suddenly alarmed, he crossed the room with all swiftness, swiping up the small book and stowing it securely in his left hand jacket pocket, casting a suspicious look at Holmes.

"You were going to read this, weren't you?"

He couldn't quite tell if the doctor was angry, demanding a confession, or honestly wondering. As a result, instead of supplying an answer, or even a clever barb, Holmes opened and closed his mouth in a demonstration of how one can maximize their general inefficiency.

No doubt he looked ridiculous.

Something passed through Watson's eyes just then – indescribable, as it so often was – and his face smoothed out into a look of not-entirely-despondent resignation, as he muttered, "I don't know why I am surprised. You've always been nosy."

With a huff and a glance of gentle remonstrance, Watson moved to the basket chair he had unofficially claimed, and relaxed into it with a badly concealed grimace of pain that he still experienced rather more frequently than Holmes would have liked.

Holmes blinked at open space, cogs in his mind whirring together at impossible speeds. What on earth had that been? Watson was not to react in such a…well, he hadn't really reacted at all, had he? And he should have. Or at least, most other men would. For his own part, Holmes thought that anything simply left lying about couldn't possibly be of too great a concern for the owner, or they would have taken further steps to ensure the security of the item, but then again not everyone was quite as meticulous as the consulting detective, and he understood, at least in a theoretical capacity, that people take such breeches of privacy rather hard. And he also knew that John Watson was in possession of a quite intimidating temper, slow to anger but rather impressive when the blaze finally caught, though it did burn itself out almost as quickly as it flared up. Especially where Holmes was concerned, the normally affable doctor could be quite brusque, verging at times on the blatantly rude. It stood to reason, therefore, that Watson should be quite put out at the moment, if nothing else, as determined by years of association with Holmes and in keeping with traditional social norms. And again, Watson had managed to violate that all-glorified reason that Holmes adhered to more devoutly than the average man saying his mealtime prayers and it irked. Oh, how it strangled something fierce and desperate in the detective's mind, something that told him all things had a point, every tale had a beginning, every solution had a problem, and causality was the puppeteer few people bothered to take notice of. It drove the poor man nearly to distraction whenever he was faced with this impassable conundrum, and the very fact that it _was_ impassable brought self-doubt and incredulity to frolic with the confusion and frustration already taking up residence in his mournfully over-crowded brain attic.

Holmes had not lacked for occasions over the past several days for thinking his decision to literally drag John Watson into his life was nothing but an atrocious mistake, but he did not relish the relentless reminders. And then the matter of that frequently-seen yet still entirely inscrutable _something_ that darted across Watson's face and in and out of the light in his eyes, and sometimes playing around the edges of his smiles, when he'd deigned to bestow one upon Holmes on those rare instances when he found the taller man's company tolerable in any way, and –

- In short, Holmes did not know what to make of it. He never had in the years previously, and over the two weeks or so that the doctor had been sharing the sitting room with him and his brother, Holmes was no closer to understanding it than he had been when he was nine years old and watching a young boy play at swashbucklers in a grassy vale. It was a profound testament to how much further he had yet to go, despite how far he'd managed to come.

But before he could work himself into a fit over the fizzling mess in his head, the door to the sitting room opened again and one of Mycroft's incurably bland serving men entered.

"Sir, there is a Mr. Chester Carfield here to see you, and he seems to be in some dire straits," the butler said tonelessly.

"What the Devil could he possibly want?" Mycroft muttered under his breath, folding up the document he had been working on and stowing it in the top drawer of his writing desk, before saying, "Very well, Simon, do show him in."

Carfield was a man like any man in Chichester who was not poor, namely: insanely wealthy. There were only the two extremes present in that particular area of Sussex, due to some economical disparity that Holmes had never bothered ruminating on, and all the well-off society gentlemen knew one another and had something of an unofficial club; there were never specific dates drawn up, but in any given season there were at least two or three men vacationing at the same time, and they tended to meet up with one another to drink overpriced brandy and smoke tobacco that, on average, was worth more than Holmes' lease on Montague. Mycroft very rarely took part in any of the social niceties that others seemed so very dependent on, but nor was he ever unpleasant, merely short with people. It was well known in the area, however, that if one had a problem and it could not readily be solved, one took said problem to Mycroft Holmes.

Carfield came in then, an average man in almost every capacity; neither tall nor short, dark nor fair, with a nondescript profile and a bone structure that left much to be desired. But he was very clearly distressed, so much that he hadn't bothered taking a carriage from his estate, and instead crossed the open fields on foot, if the deep, brown-black mud soaking a third of an inch up his trouser legs was any indication. He was also quite clearly a horse trader.

"Yes, what may I do for you, Mr. Carfield?" Mycroft asked, standing from his seat to shake the poor man's hand.

"I am so very relieved you agreed to see me, Mr. Holmes, really, I cannot thank you enough, for without Anapest I'll surely be ruined!"

"I take that to be the name of the horse that has gone missing from your stables," Mycroft said easily, favoring a more straight-forward approach rather than his sibling's rather dramatic revelations.

It didn't stop Carfield from being fairly gob smacked. "Indeed sir, indeed, but however did you know that?"

"It is immaterial," the large man said with a wave of a dismissive hand, "Please, tell me all you can recall of the days preceding the disappearance of the horse."

Carfield began the whole sordid tale, seeming to implicate damn near his entire household, the groomsmen, his clients, a former lover, and an old woman who'd looked at him crossly when his carriage nearly ran her over a week and a half ago. It was not Holmes' case, explicitly, but he was intrigued despite himself and utterly ravenous for any sort of problem to solve, despite the very real possibility that his brother would have the answer in five minutes. His brain was rotting in stagnation, and though the perpetual mystery of his infuriatingly enigmatic doctor was a worthy exercise, he was miserably unequal to the task, a deficiency he did not enjoy dwelling upon.

Not three minutes had passed, and Holmes had already formed a working hypothesis for the culprit being a short, middle-aged man of some Celtic descent who had very loose ties at best with the unfortunate Carfield – which exempted him from being mentioned by the distressed gentleman – when Mycroft suddenly broke into his thoughts and effectively cut off the other man's story.

"This seems like a puzzle best suited to you, brother dearest," he said, having resumed his seat, clearly no longer paying much attention.

"Your brother?" Carfield asked at the same time Holmes said, "Really, Mycroft, I have no need of charity!"

"Yes, Mr. Carfield, this is my younger brother Sherlock, who is sadly wanting as a social creature and cannot seem to view a kind gesture as anything but pity," Mycroft said, at once cordial and biting, a manner many supposed he learned from his life in politics, but Holmes knew better.

"So it is a favor, then?" Holmes asked, trying to keep any sort of bitterness from his tone, because he was very nearly desperate enough to take the case regardless of why Mycroft was offering it to him.

The older Holmes huffed, angling a sharp eyebrow. "You may think of it as such, if you are feeling particularly sentimental, which you never are, and so therefore you will understand much better when I say that it is the most logical decision to give the task of completing the case over to you. I have far too much to do to be spending my time gallivanting all over the countryside tracking down potential villains, and so I leave that part to you, _mon petite frère._"

It made perfect sense, and had the added effect of chastening Holmes quite efficiently.

"Of course I appreciate it, brother mine."

It was the closest Holmes ever came to verbal gratitude, and Mycroft knew it, and so the detective was graced with a tiny smirk as a way of forgiveness.

Over near the window, out of the corner of Holmes' eye, he saw the doctor writing furiously in his little pocket notebook. That was when he had an idea that, if he'd ever questioned his own intelligence before, would have convinced him he was in fact a genius.

"Doctor, if you would be so kind as to accompany me, I do believe your notes on the subject would be very useful as reference points as I do my rather unimpressive poking around the village."

The look of utterly speechless shock on Watson's face would have made the invitation completely worth it, even if he had turned it down.

Mycroft's expression of pleasantly surprised approval was simply an additional benefit.

That the doctor, while stammering, eventually agreed was more than Holmes had honestly hoped for, and he was once again assured of his brilliance. In fact, he thought he rather deserved a reward. Or at least a moderately stimulating mystery.

* * *

What Holmes got, in point of fact, was a very grueling, tedious march all over Carfield's estate, the surrounding fields of property, and the village that was roughly ten minutes away if one was walking briskly. Watson had followed along gamely, a bright look of curiosity on his weather-beaten countenance, except for that one moment when Holmes successfully deduced which of the serving girls Carfield was having an affair with – blue eyes had widened impossibly, and there had been a brief expression of incredulity and scandal, until laughter overtook it and was followed by an air of complete awe-struck wonder that permeated his every pour, topped off with an enthusiastic round of applause – that made strange chemicals churn in Holmes' stomach in not-all-together-unpleasant ways. He reasoned with himself that Watson had been incredibly listless since he took up residency at the Holmes estate, and the detective was merely relieved to see a more engaging look on his face, and Watson was no fool, perhaps he lacked Holmes' broader and more finely honed intellect, but he was far from an imbecile, and so it was a shame, really, for such a mind as John Watson's to stagnate for long in a black mood, and that was the only reason Holmes even bothered to concern himself with the rather mundane consideration of whether the good doctor occupied himself or not, because a mind was a terrible thing to waste, especially such a decent one, and –

- And Holmes was aware that he was prevaricating. Quite abysmally. But he would not, under any circumstances, try to figure out what it was he was lying to himself about. He merely dismayed that it was becoming more and more difficult to keep his mind shuttered against any dangerous, Watson-related musings. He refused to think about _that_, as well.

It wouldn't be such a difficult practice if the actual mystery before him was in any way intriguing. So far as Holmes could tell, his initial theory of a short, middle-aged Celtic man – Holmes was assuming Irish, since Chichester was more towards the southern end of Sussex and further west, meaning a Scotsman's presence was more rare – was being borne out with the sort of mind-numbing simplicity that only served to reaffirm his hatred of all things country. Even their complex horse thieves were so mired in doldrums they lacked any sort of flair or originality. Holmes was beginning to long quite excruciatingly for his cramped hovel on Montague, with his cantankerous landlady and rude neighbors and leaking walls – leaking _what_, he had never dared to find out – if only it meant returning to the city that he loved. Only his perpetual anxiety over Watson's condition kept him from chaffing into insanity out here in all the lush grass, soothing breeze and the sheer idyllic tranquility that grated at his mind more than soothed it. With no friction against his thoughts, with nothing for his brain to grind against, he feared his mind would smooth itself out and become useless. It was a very real concern. How Mycroft existed in such passive recline forever baffled Holmes.

But Watson, who limped behind Holmes at a more sedate pace, gazed around them as though he had stumbled into the Garden of Eden. His blue eyes lit up, the sun glinting off the brighter, bleached tips of his otherwise brown hair, creating an almost halo-quality around his usually drawn features, softening them into the closest thing to contentment Holmes had seen since the day they met. It warmed him inexplicably, and he wished to be churlish simply to combat it, when the doctor chose that very moment to turn to Holmes and smile, almost shyly.

"I really am grateful to you for inviting me along, Holmes. I doubt I'll be of any actual use, but I shall certainly try, and the excuse to get out is marvelous in any event."

It may have been due to the surprising warmth for such an early spring afternoon, but it seemed as though Watson were blushing.

Holmes shifted forwards once more.

"Not at all, my good man, though I forewarn you: these jaunts are rarely ever interesting."

"I wonder you can say such a thing," Watson sighed wistfully, and Holmes realized this was his first real trek anywhere that was not a mere few paces away from the manor's front door.

"Your leg isn't troubling you, is it?" he asked, turning back with a distinct sinking sensation in his abdomen. "It was horribly remiss of me to have dragged you all this distance without sparing a thought to your comfort."

Concerned with his condition, indeed.

Watson simply chuckled, and he did not sound in pain, though perhaps a little tired. "I am fine, old fellow. No need to fret."

Holmes narrowed his eyes at the other man. "I have the distinct feeling you would respond similarly if you had broken your neck."

"Perhaps," Watson smiled warmly, a beam of sun somehow catching it and magnifying its intensity beyond what should have been achievable by the average man. "But I have not broken my neck, so let's press on, shall we? There is far too much beautiful scenery to discuss such morbid things."

Holmes couldn't help the snort of distaste.

Watson flicked a sidelong glance at him.

"You don't enjoy picturesque hills and a blue, cloudless sky?"

"Your poetry doesn't leave much to the imagination, does it, Watson?" Holmes muttered, and then instantly regretted it, because he _knew_ the doctor kept a bullpup, and they had been getting along quite admirably until now. He simply wasn't capable of controlling his reactions when around this man. But then again, he had known that already, too.

An abrupt guffaw burst forth just then, a sort of surprised delight in Watson's eyes, as though he had not expected to be so amused. Holmes certainly hadn't expected it.

"You haven't even read any of my poetry. Although I would not recommend it," Watson added hastily. "Poetry is, admittedly, not my strong suit. Stories are more my area of expertise, if one could even call it that."

"But you do write?" Holmes asked.

Watson cut him another glance, somewhat blank. "Of course I write, you see me at it every day."

He made a disgruntled noise, because suddenly he was no longer as articulate as usual, and this was far too vexing. "Yes, yes, I was aware of that, I meant that you wrote more than journals. You write creatively."

"Yes, short pieces of fiction. It is something to pass the time." There was a distinct lowering in tonality then, the impression of bleakness, before Watson visibly shook himself. "It's really not much of anything. Just scribbles."

"If it were truly nothing, you would not have guarded your notebook so fiercely this afternoon," Holmes insisted reasonably, earning one more inscrutable, sidelong gaze.

"I had not realized quite how much you coveted the thing, or I would have kept it well hidden. You seem like a man who frequently gets whatever he wants, and I thought it time you became accustomed to being denied."

At hearing that bold pronouncement, Holmes' mind rioted, insisting that such a sanctimonious tone could not come from Watson, not as he knew the man, and the comment was utterly rude, and Watson was far too much a gentleman, more so than most of the well-to-do toffs Holmes had encountered, and he would never stoop to such judgment, it simply didn't add up, it didn't –

He halted then, staring at Watson's back.

"You are twitting me."

The doctor stopped as well, leaning on his cane and looking back at Holmes, eyebrows raised, expression innocent.

"Am I?"

And Holmes simply couldn't help it.

He laughed. Heartily and astonished, and he had not done so in time incalculable, and the release he felt was more freeing and rich than he ever imagined it would be, so calming he overlooked the breach of his control simply to savor how it felt.

And yet again, that unnamable _something_ darted across Watson's face before a smile, huge and beaming and guileless, just as it always had been, replaced it.

Holmes smiled in return, pushing his hands in his pockets and a tension he hadn't even been conscious of leaved off his shoulders.

"Well, you certainly have a surprising wit, Doctor. I see I must be cautious around you."

"I never had you figured for a man who bothered much with caution," Watson said, still grinning.

Holmes started forward again down the foot path, fighting against the persistent, upward pull at the corners of his mouth.

"I suppose you are right, my dear Watson."

* * *

Perhaps the case had turned out rather more exciting than Holmes had originally expected. It was quite easy to see the path by which the nameless Irishman had ushered the drugged and fumbling horse away from the stable, and Holmes would follow him shortly enough, but he had determined that things could possibly get a bit rough when he confronted the volatile and most likely desperate horse thief for the return of his stolen goods, and so thought the doctor should not be present for the actual apprehension.

As large hands apparently tempered from steel continued to crush and collapse his windpipe in a dingy, abandoned barn while three of his mates began packing up their caravans and two others watched with something like glee on their faces, Holmes decided that his notion to come alone was not brilliance, per se, but he was more than relieved that the good doctor wouldn't be here to witness such a thing, or unthinkably, to suffer a similar fate. Holmes would never forgive himself if he had led Watson, a wounded and recovering soldier, into the den of such a crew as this. For that was the one minute detail Holmes hadn't quite deduced: it was no mere isolated act of burglary, but the workings of a wide-spread horsing gang.

Ah, the intricacies of life.

As a result of Holmes' tragic lack of data, he had not thought it pertinent to invite the local constabulary along for the rounding up of what turned out to be roughly nine people and merely left them a rather cryptic message that hopefully they would solve before his air supply ran out, which it was doing at an alarming rate. His hands grappled with those currently choking the life out of him, movements going sluggish as black dots steadily spread out, bleeding through his vision until his was staring down a tunnel and he could not escape from the precarious angle of being bent violently backwards over a table, wood cutting into the small of his back dulling into a mere throb as senses began to fail him, he could no longer hear the chuckles from his audience, the grunts from his captor, the pathetic, pleading gasps from his own mouth, nor the rapid footsteps and shouts from outside, except that he could, could catch the traces of yells, of loud barking voices, of solid impacts, and before he could piece any of it together, something long and thin passed before his fading vision, and with a brutal jerk the villain strangling him stumbled backwards, hands releasing Holmes' throat, and the detective slumped like a sack of flower against the table.

Gasping, his mouth dry and esophagus filled with broken glass, Holmes blinked the unnatural color from his eyes in time to see how exactly the power in the barn had shifted.

The two men who had been watching his slow and rather painful demise were laid out on the floor, one moaning slightly in pain, the other silent. There was some commotion outside, but Holmes didn't bother with that, as there was the evidence of a struggle still going on in the room. The brute who had been strangling him was putting up a weak fight, making the sort of half-choked garbling noises that were oh-so-familiar to Holmes by that point, and he was pushing frantically yet fruitlessly against what appeared to be a stick pressed into his throat from behind…or a cane—

Ice water plummeted into his stomach.

Watson. What the _devil_ was he doing here?

Holmes tried to call out, to get the foolish man away from this place, to tell him to leave and come back with some police officers at least, to get out _before he gets hurt_, but his voice was trapped, vocal chords swollen and abused and all he could force out was a feeble wheeze, and then several things happened all at once.

The doctor planted his strong, right leg between the villain's, knocking his legs apart and off balanced. Then he slammed the cane back into his throat, stunning him, before shoving hard at his left shoulder, spinning the man around and distorting equilibrium further, before grasping the cane again to deliver one sharp blow to the solar plexus followed by a harsh crack across the skull.

The man was dropped in less than ten seconds.

Watson drew a few deep breaths, leaning on his cane more heavily than was his normal wont, but by no means seemed surprised by his rather formidable display. In truth, when he did finally look up and lock gazes with Holmes sitting crumpled on the floor near the table where he would have no doubt perished had Watson not demonstrated his gift of impeccable timing, the expression most readily apparent on his face was something akin to rage.

"_What the devil were you thinking!_" he bellowed, and Holmes realized he had never really seen the doctor angry until now. "You idiot! What would have possessed you to go after an organized _gang of thieves_ without informing anyone of your whereabouts? You could have died! You very nearly did, from what I saw, and can you even speak right now?"

Holmes wondered idly if the good doctor could read minds.

"No, don't answer that, I can see the swelling from here and clearly you _can not_ talk, which I suppose is well for you, because if the first words out of your mouth are not an explanation followed by a very handsome apology to your brother and myself, I swear I shall throttle you personally! I suggest you take this reprieve to plan out exactly what you wish to say."

"I was not aware it was a gang."

It was raspy, not to mention _indecently_ painful, but it seemed the only thing Holmes was capable of saying on the topic.

"You weren't…aware…"

Watson sighed then and seemed to collapse into himself, all his ire and bravado gone on an exhalation, leaving the smaller man only tired and worried, and a slight tremor was in his muscles that Holmes just now noticed. He was about to inquire after Watson's health, when the doctor shook himself, stepped over the prone man on the floor between them, and dropped to his knees beside Holmes without a single thought for his damaged leg.

Deft, gentle fingers went to his throat.

"Are you all right? There is considerable swelling," he murmured, almost sheepish, as though he now regretted his earlier jab, "but your windpipe is intact and nothing seems to be at all broken or displaced. I daresay you'll have a horrific sore throat for the foreseeable future, but no permanent damage. I suppose you are to be commended for your luck."

He meant to say his luck consisted entirely of knowing an excellent physician by the name of John Watson.

What he said instead, after a weak clearing of the throat that _hurt_, damn it, was, "How did you find me? And what of the men loading the caravans?"

Watson flicked his eyes up to meet Holmes' and then just as quickly back down again, fingertips still examining and pressing softly against what would surely be a terrible bruise by morning. Holmes would have to wear a rather elaborate cravat.

"The others are being rounded up by the constabulary because that seemed like the _logical_ thing to do," and the doctor resumed his glaring.

"Finding you was not so impossible. Although it certainly took long enough," the last was muttered darkly, and Holmes could not even fathom Watson feeling guilty in any way over this. "We saw the tracks earlier this morning, if you will recall. You may also recall telling me that the culprit was likely long gone, and the authorities of Surrey ought to be informed they have an escaped thief in their midst. And then around two in the afternoon while we were scurrying through that old woman's azaleas which I told you _was not necessary_, up you jump with a manic gleam in your eye and you run back to your brother's estate and don't speak a word to anyone until dinner. Surely the next part you remember quite vividly," Watson tossed out, and Holmes had the grace to at least contemplate blushing, although he never actually made it there.

Holmes did remember the epiphany among the flowers, noting one had been nibbled in a very suspicious manner, and since the woman did not own any horses of her own, the idea that there had been two horses wandering about the fields at night was far too absurd to be true. Logically, then, the thief had made it _appear _as though he were headed to Surrey, and in fact had double-backed through the old woman's property, and sure enough Holmes saw the trail of horse hooves on the other side of the garden path, weaving slightly along the road suggesting that the beast had been sedated to keep it from struggling, and off in the distance was the derelict silhouette of the abandoned barn, and Holmes had decided it was best to head home and throw the doctor off his scent because - and it was a very good thing Holmes was capable of appreciating irony as he did - he feared for the good man's safety.

Something about the pointed glare Watson was now angling his way meant he had deduced the last of that chain of events easily enough for himself.

"I repeat: you are an _idiot_. An utter genius, of course, but an idiot nonetheless, and do not think that you shall ever make such a mistake again. Do you understand me?"

Holmes could have chosen to ignore the man, if he wished. He could have feigned ignorance, and pretended he did not know to what Watson referred. But those blue eyes, bright even in the gathering gloom of dusk, told Holmes in no uncertain terms that his prevarication would be found out, and things would go hard for him if he made them hard for Watson.

And he found ignoring the man to be nigh on impossible, when he was so clearly the object of his focus and seemed completely unaware that he even held such attention. It was fascinating.

Holmes grinned. "Completely, my dear doctor."

It wasn't until much later - when dusk had drifted into evening, the many reams of questions put forth by the ever-dogged local police had been answered, Watson had waved off any words of gratitude the officers had given, and the two men were walking slowly along the road back to Mycroft's estate - that Holmes asked what had been a cause for much confusion since Watson had appeared on the scene like a knight-errant. He was fairly certain he knew the answer, but he would rather hear the doctor explain it. A part of his mind tried insisting it was because he enjoyed the sound of the doctor's voice, but that part of his mind was treacherous at best, and so he refused to listen to it.

"So you followed the tracks from the old woman's garden, as you say, but how did you know to look there in the first, my good man?"

Watson blushed slightly, eyes downcast in a look of humility that seemed so at odds with the fierce and exacting soldier he had been in the barn, berating Holmes and demanding promises, that the detective was hard pressed not to chuckle under his breath at the image he now made as he limped meekly along.

"Well I certainly can't take credit for it," he said. "When your brother and I realized you had been gone for quite some time, he asked me to read back my notes on what we had seen earlier this afternoon. At first I didn't understand why he wished to know, but soon enough I realized he was making all the deductions you would have made, only through a second-hand source. It was…well it was mind-boggling, to say the least. I didn't think there existed a human being who could do such a thing."

Holmes couldn't help but smirk. "However I excel in the art of observation and causal thinking, my brother is, I freely admit, even more skilled than I. But since he is somewhat persistent in never moving farther than is absolutely necessary, those puzzles that require actual on-site investigating are beyond his ken, for that reason and that reason only. If he were even half as active as I am, I fear I would be well out of the job."

Watson smiled softly. "I have trouble believing that, but I suppose if you say so, it is likely true."

Holmes cleared his throat and studied the trees in the distance.

"In any event," the doctor went on, "after he had gleaned the information needed, he sent me round to the police station to inform them of the trouble you were no doubt in. I don't think he intended for me to join them," and here the man smirked to himself as well, "but I have never coped well with being left on the periphery. The policemen tried to insist I stay behind, and I am not proud to admit that I pulled rank on them and, for lack of a less damning term, bullied my way into their rescue team."

"For which I am eternally grateful, as I may have mentioned," Holmes said.

"You have not," Watson replied, chuckling.

"Ah. Well, the intention to do so was present nonetheless, and as they say, it is the thought that counts. Now, what do you say to retiring this rather unpleasant strain of conversation and enjoying the quiet, idyllic beauty of an evening in the country?"

"You simply dread the dressing-down you'll no doubt get from Mr. Holmes upon your return," Watson said slyly.

"I'll ask you not to slander my reputation, there's a good fellow," Holmes sniffed, and Watson burst out laughing again.

There was no logical explanation for the warm, squirming sensation Holmes felt in his gut at hearing such a thing, and so he proceeded to hum one of his favorite Bach movements in the hopes of drowning out the voice in his head that kept insisting quiet, dangerous things that had no business being in his head, at least not while the doctor was near.

Beside him, Watson breathed in deeply, and sighed.

* * *

Ah, Holmes. Your sense of humor never fails to concern me :). Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing! Comments are always welcome!


	8. An Admission of Affection

Hey everyone! Terribly sorry about the delay, I just got slammed with relentless RL tragedies, from my computer crashing (and simultaneously deleting two days worth of work on this story) to finals, and finally a funeral. I still haven't written up the end, but I still had some parts already done to post, so here's the rest of what I have, and hopefully the end won't be too far off. Thanks for sticking with me, and I hope you guys are still interested!

* * *

_An Admission of Affection_

"I'll leave you to it, then," Watson had said with the most peculiar, teasing smile, as they both stood in the foyer of the mansion. "If you are still breathing by the end of it, come find me; you'll need some ointment on those bruises if you wish to turn your head at some point tomorrow."

And with a final, amused smirk, the doctor had flitted off to his room, effectively abandoning Holmes to his fate. It could be counted a blessing of sorts, Holmes supposed, that this encounter should occur after Mycroft had supped and was nursing a brandy near the fire of his private study, now free of any highly confidential government documents that needed his immediate attention. The bane of such a situation, however, was that there was nothing to divert that attention to something that was not Holmes and his many duplicitous failings, as Mycroft was sure to term them at some point during their discussion.

However, Mycroft was considerably less infuriated than Holmes had anticipated, judged entirely from Watson's meandering intimations. But the stiff lines of his shoulders and the veritable miasma of tension and nerves that radiated from his copious form spoke volumes to the sort of anxiety Holmes had unwittingly subjected his sibling to, and a seldom felt clench of guilt resonated in his lower abdomen.

"Sherlock," Mycroft said, and Holmes knew instantly this would be less about hurling accusations and more about making the detective feel like an utterly wretched creature. Grey, eagle-sharp eyes turned on him then, and the lines around the older brother's face were far more pronounced in the dull, flickering light from the hearth. In a few quick flicks of that gaze, Mycroft knew every second of what had transpired that night as though he'd been there himself, which was precisely why he _did not need_ to be present for most things, which was most likely why he never was.

"I see you've managed to scrape through, yet again."

"I always do," Holmes replied, noting the distinct lack of bluster in his own tone.

Mycroft was quiet a moment, stare lingering on the angry marks that still pulsed unpleasantly at Holmes' neck. Then a low: "Yes. Somehow, you always do."

There was a heavy silence following that, too many years of wordless hurt and nameless ache, and wishing for things that they couldn't explain because they barely understood them anyway, all piled into one dark room in a rich estate out on the country, and Holmes found it slightly pathetic that for all their immeasurable wit and clever banter, there were some things the two brothers had never learned how to say to each other.

It was all manner of substitutes and alternatives, but somehow they understood, regardless.

"I have noticed a pattern, Sherlock, which I shall now elucidate for you in the hopes that you shall make a decision that is beneficial to your health and sanity, for once in all your life." After seeing the look that no doubt now adorned Holmes' face, he hastily continued, "No, I shall not hand you the entire puzzle, you greedy little urchin! I told you already you will solve the thing on your own. But you are taking rather longer about it than I had anticipated, and in the interim you have shown yourself to be a man of questionable decisions and deplorable habits. I feel this needs to be addressed."

Holmes was ready to scoff in his usual flippant nature, when the vision of Mycroft sat hunched in an armchair by his bedside as the air around his head broke into particles and drifted away returned to his mind's eye, and he held his tongue, waiting for whatever heated remonstrance about his morphine habit Mycroft had dreamed up while he'd been busy being strangled by an Irishman.

The large man drained the remainder of his glass and set it down on the side board.

"Do not ever lose the doctor," he enunciated, careful and deliberate as though Holmes were terribly slow.

He frowned. "What do you -"

" – You do unforgivably stupid things when the doctor is not around," Mycroft overrode him. "You isolated yourself from all decent society for your entire childhood, you threw yourself single-minded into your work, to the exclusion of anything remotely synonymous with self-preservation – for God's sake, Sherlock, you nearly killed yourself because you thought he was already dead!" He stopped, taking a moment to compose himself as he poured out another drink, and one for Holmes, who took it gratefully and downed it in one go, unsure of where this was going and if he could survive the conclusion. It was frighteningly too close to all the manifold things he never permitted himself to dwell on, all the things he had boxed up and hidden away, so well that only his brother could see it anymore.

"Mycroft…I don't - "

"—And tonight you were nearly done in by a band of horse thieves, simply because you left the man here instead of taking him along."

"Mycroft, that was a mere coincidence!" Holmes interjected. "It was faulty logic on my part, I did not realize there was more than one man involved. It had nothing whatever to do with Watson's presence, or lack thereof!"

The eldest Holmes narrowed his eyes. "I am not so certain of that. Simply heed my advice: keep the doctor close. He is the only one who can knock any sense into your deucedly thick skull."

_How ironic, as he is the only person I cannot make sense of._

He didn't say it out loud, of course, because doing so would have been an exercise in redundancy, since the moment the thought was completed inside his head, Mycroft saw it, and reluctantly grinned.

"You will one day, _petite frère_. You always solve your mysteries."

"What if I'm not even certain I wish to solve it?" Holmes asked before he could think to stop himself, the fortifications he'd spent so long building up around this very topic beginning to crumble the tiniest bit.

Mycroft sighed, sipping from his own brandy in a much more sedate manner. "I'm not sure you have a say in the matter, Sherlock. You have the sometimes regrettable habit of revealing the answers to all problems that come into your purview, whether you wanted the answers or not. I believe it is rather compulsive on your part."

Holmes thought dimly of asking for another few fingers of the amber liquid, especially since he had told the doctor he would pay him a visit before retiring and any little aid he could get with that scenario appeared to be a brilliant tactic, but ultimately decided against it. He had trouble enough thinking logically when in the presence of John Watson, and it seemed rather counter-productive to diminish the likelihood of rational thought further.

"Would it really be so terrible, brother?" Mycroft spoke then, barely more than a softened murmur.

There were any number of things he could be referring to, and Holmes knew he had worded it for that exact purpose: allowing Holmes to choose how to interpret the statement, so he might continue deluding himself if he saw fit. It was the sort of gesture that would seem pointless to the average onlooker, but the average onlooker, in Holmes' rather broad experience, was an ignorant git. Holmes saw it for what it was, and was heartened to realize he hadn't driven his brother past the point of forgiveness quite yet.

And so, he answered as truthfully as he could. Mycroft deserved that much, if nothing else.

"I don't know."

Mycroft understood the significance of that admission as well, and merely sighed in response. The two brothers stood a moment longer together in silent contemplation of the fire, before Mycroft finally finished off his glass and set it once more upon the sideboard.

"I shall see you in the morning, Sherlock," he said, and Holmes heard the unspoken, _Now get out_ louder than if the larger man had actually given voice to the directive.

"Good night, brother mine."

Holmes left as quietly as he'd come in.

* * *

It was interesting, to say the least, to watch the myriad expressions flit across John Watson's face when he opened his bedroom door not ten minutes later, and Holmes felt it even somewhat compensated for the utter mental anguish he had endured simply to force himself to knock in the first place. Initially there was a teasing sort of twist to his mouth, but it died the same second his blue eyes widened, taking in the less-than-magnanimous image Holmes no doubt made, slightly stooped and leaning against the doorjamb. There was a flicker of something soft across the smaller man's expression, and his mouth pulled downwards just the slightest at the corner, and finally he sighed.

Holmes vowed that if the doctor entreated him to discuss his _emotions_ – a more odious affliction upon his time and energy not even Holmes' vast intellect could hit upon – then he would have no qualms whatever about pummeling the illogical fool into the floor. He was in no mood to be trifled with, even less so than usual, and the only reason he was even _here_ at this godforsaken hour in the night was because he had _told_ Watson he would be, and it seemed a bit early on in things to start disappointing the man now.

"Do come in, Holmes. I'll have a look at your injuries," Watson said just then, no attempts at levity, all traces of humor gone, but there was a measure of empathy in his warm voice, understated but present regardless. And then, as though that was all that need be said on the matter, Watson pulled the door open wider and strode over to his small-yet-handsome desk and retrieved his doctor bag. "You will no doubt be dismayed to hear that in addition to a salve for the bruises, I also prescribe a soothing drought which will surely be foul and hateful to you."

Holmes felt a rather intense upwelling of relief, shredded nerves calming in the knowledge that he would not be required to hash out his feelings on anything that had occurred that evening, and that Watson had no intention of prying.

So he frowned as a matter of course.

"And how did you know I abhor medicinal concoctions, dear doctor?" Holmes asked severely, moving further into the room as the door swung shut behind him. "I don't believe I have ever mentioned the fact, thought it is nonetheless true."

Watson turned to him with an unimpressed raise of an eyebrow. "Everyone hates tonics, Holmes. I've not met a single person who feels otherwise."

"Even yourself?" he asked loftily. "I had assumed physicians coped rather well with their own viscous creations, indoctrinated as they are in the notion that it is all for the best."

Watson chuckled dryly. "Believe me, Holmes, not even the resilient palate of a doctor is entirely immune to the ghastly nature of most tonics."

"As they say, 'Doctors make the worst patients.'"

Something fluttered through Watson's eyes in that moment, but it wasn't The Something that Holmes saw on odd occasions when the doctor was disproportionately pleased by things that were admittedly mundane – such as when Holmes succeeded in being decent for longer than an average afternoon tea. It was far too dark to be that same unnamable expression; it more resembled a shadow, as if a veil had been dropped over his usual, bright exuberance, and a brief tension seized his entire frame and for only a second, Watson looked as though he knew very well what agony felt like.

From one blink to the next it was gone, replaced by Watson's indubitable spirit of goodwill which Holmes was beginning to suspect existed nowhere else in reality outside of this one remarkable man's heart, and a second wave of guilt twisted and surged in his stomach in that precise instant, when Holmes finally recalled how frail the doctor's health was, evidenced in the droop of clothing from a painfully emaciated frame as Watson had limped heavily down an empty pier, and how effectively he was managing to wound this man without even being aware of it.

Holmes cringed, moving forward a step as he hastily said, "Please pardon my inexcusable lack of tact, Watson. I am rarely enough tolerable as it is, but I seem to be excessively unkind this evening. I do not mean to make you the victim of my ill temper."

Watson paused, watching Holmes with eyes wide and lips slightly parted, seeming for all the world as if he had just stumbled upon a mythical beast.

Holmes felt decidedly uncomfortable.

"What?" he snapped.

A grin flickered across the doctor's face, but he just shook his head. "It's nothing, old boy. Have a seat and remove your collar, if you would, and we can get started."

Still frowning slightly, Holmes perched himself upon the edge of the doctor's bed and began undoing the buttons and cravat holding his collar in place as Watson dragged the chair from his desk over, a wrap and tube of salve in the other hand. When he sat as well a moment later, Holmes realized this was without a doubt the closest they had ever been in a proximal sense, and so concluded that this had been a terrible idea. Then Watson smirked at him, picking up where Holmes had unwittingly left off on his own collar, fingers numb and somehow motionless, and why did it seem like he couldn't breathe? Surely it was a side effect of non-lethal strangulation? The swelling of tissue and glands blocking the airway and making oxygen deprivation far more likely than whatever it was currently assailing Holmes' senses? He could have easily convinced himself of this if all the evidence did not blatantly proclaim something else entirely, and –

And his brain finally, blissfully, shut down. As it seemed to have a tendency of doing, whenever Holmes found himself in prolonged exposure of the doctor's person, and Holmes thought it had less to do with a multitude of unfamiliar stimuli all colliding with his senses at once and more to do with the burnished quality Watson's skin adopted when bathed in gaslight.

Although that was merely an isolated occurrence.

But in opposition to the incident in the rugby changing room back at Cambridge, wherein Holmes felt his mind distinctly detached from his body and therefore did not register much in the way of touch and sight and smell, this particular separation had a jarringly stimulating effect. Instead, he was hyper-aware of the smells surrounding him, dust and earth and distant flowers on the breeze and the particular brand of cigarette Watson was prone to smoking enveloping it all in a comforting haze; of the sounds of owls hooting up in the trees, leaves bristling; of soft puffs of breath against his face and the sharp chill of the salve against the flesh of his throat, Watson's muttered apology, timbre low and intimate, the way warm, calloused fingertips rubbed over tender bruises, soothing hurts and calming Holmes' rattled, fraying nerves in the way morphine and cocaine never did manage to achieve, providing a heady balm to wounded spirits.

As though he were, suddenly and inexplicably, a purely physical being. As though he were like everyone else.

Holmes had never felt anything like it before in his life. And this time, the urge to flee did not seize him. He wished to stay, as a matter of fact. To bask a while longer in this bubble of ease, to stay warm and safe near the small fire in Watson's hearth and watch how the flickering light changed the hue of his eyes and played shadows over the muscles of his forearms where his shirtsleeves were rolled back, and to . . . to what? To do what? To speak of what? He wished to stay and do . . . something. Something which he could not name or even fathom, except that he was fairly sure it did have a name. He wished to stay and find out.

And that was why he wished to flee. Because he desired so strongly to remain and learn and to puzzle out this entire infuriating mess, to stay with this man he'd known for a lifetime and never even knew, years of nothing somehow adding up to an entire well of indefinable Something, rippling out from a single point on a grassy hillock in Scotland near a river, and certain that Watson, that blasted, wonderful man, didn't recall a moment of it. The whole endeavor was doomed from the start, and though Holmes had been vaguely cognizant of that fact, it had never before been clearer than that still night in Watson's chamber with owls hooting in the distance and futility weighting his limbs.

Then Watson was speaking, seeming so close and yet so far away it was impossible to distinguish, and Holmes did not pull himself together so much as he focused more firmly on the doctor which, oddly enough, seemed to have a similar effect. Holmes hadn't even noticed when Watson's hands had stopped applying the salve.

"I'm sorry?" he prompted, for the words had sounded like canon fire and rain the first time, and he dearly wished to know what the doctor would say in that moment.

"I am relieved," he repeated, tone soft and low, before he looked up and Holmes read a thousand indecipherable thoughts in that gaze. There was any number of things that Watson could be referring to, but the way he shifted uncomfortably, eyes straying towards his wounded leg cleared the matter up nicely.

"Relieved at what?" he asked. "To know that you are still a capable fighter? Still a competent physician?"

"That I can still help people."

There was a small, fragile hope in his voice just then, blue eyes somehow huge and vulnerable, and Holmes felt the shock hit his system like it had years ago in the rugby shower room, and that urge to escape flared brighter, as if some instinctual part of him knew there was danger in this sort of astonishment; that something important was displaced with the upset of equilibrium and Holmes was taking a very big risk by even remaining in the same room as Watson whenever it happened. He knew it, felt it more keenly now that he ever had, but along with that blind sort of desperation came the old familiar conviction, the consoling mantra that seemed to answer all his questions, solve all the conundrums, and was more than probably the reason Holmes was even in the very ridiculous predicament he now found himself:

John Watson was here. And he knew he would stay as long as John Watson remained here.

He reached out a hand instead, wrapping it gently yet firmly around the smaller man's wrist, and it was not the first time they had ever shared a touch, but it certainly felt as though it was, a sensation similar to lightning, a continual loop and Watson seemed to shiver slightly but made no move to pull back.

"Thank you, Watson. I really am very, truly grateful for all you've done, even if I have tendencies not to show it. I don't know where I would be without you."

"I may have some theories," Watson said with a wry curve of his mouth that was both hidden and strangely amplified by the carefully groomed mustache that adorned his upper lip.

Holmes forced himself to smile at the jest anyway, even as his mind cast back to an empty, secluded childhood, continuous distractions, exhaustion, perpetual motion, an unnamable grief, syringes, insensibility, dark hazes, suffocation, failing strength, blackness…

_Lost_, he thought to himself, before letting go. He felt some measure of relief when the connection was severed, and regretted the loss instantly. Holmes didn't understand it. He was beginning to suspect that he never would.


	9. A Mutual Response

Kay...so this part is crazy long. I don't know why. It all just seemed to fit under the same theme. This story really has no consistency to speak of.

* * *

_A Mutual Response_

Holmes might have felt the vaguest twingings of guilt tugging at his ribs the following day as he rattled off in a hansom at some ungodly hour of the not-quite-morning, but he had been struck by a veritable lightning bolt when he had pilfered that day's copy of _The Times_ that Mycroft paid a pretty penny to be delivered all the way out to Chichester at his younger brother's behest – "Perpetual whinging," as Mycroft insisted on calling it – before any other soul had stirred, glanced idly through the advertisements section to be sure his irascible landlady hadn't sold out his rooms on Montague in a fit of indignant rage, his eyes instead gazing over a lease for an entirely different set of rooms, and he nearly spat out his morning tea at the sudden, fledgling _genius_ of the idea.

By the time he was halfway to London, he was certain it was a bit nearer to insanity.

Holmes had never been given to flights of fancy, nor crippling bouts of indecision, but in one area of his life he never seemed to be entirely certain of his actions. And though the idea had appeared entirely perfect at the time of its inception, almost divinely suited to his purposes, once the familiar fog had rolled in and the dank, heavy smell of dew on refuse drew his senses, Holmes fretted the whole thing was a blunder of massive proportions, completely asinine, hellish in its origins, and he was no longer even sure what his purposes _were_.

It was a most distressing quandary that was only assuaged to a minimum extent when he was greeted by the upstanding landlady's wide, efficient smile, and the entirely obvious, "You must be here about the rooms for let."

The space was modest, with a lower level almost exclusively for the landlady's use, a set of seventeen steps leading up to a sitting room, one bedroom adjoining it, and another just up a smaller set of stairs: it was not excessively large nor oppressively small, neither barren nor overrun with tacky nick-knacks and heirlooms of a family that wasn't his. In short, it was perfect in nearly every conceivable way.

"I shan't be dropping the rent," the lady had told him briskly, head held high and almost daring him to argue. "I think it's perfectly reasonable, given the size of the place."

That she was only recently a widow more likely than not attributed to the fixed rate, but Holmes thought better of mentioning that.

"Of course, I understand completely," he had said, nodding and flashing his most charming smile, which really only served to make the esteemed lady somewhat skeptical of him. "I shall need to make some adjustments to my finances, and hopefully I shall be seeing you again shortly."

"I would be obliged, certainly," she'd said, showing him politely to the door, and Holmes was still in something of a daze when he climbed back into his hansom and rode the two and three-fourths hours back to Mycroft's estate, fighting tooth and nail the entire way not to wring the advertisement to shreds in his fit of anxiety.

And in retrospect, Holmes really rather preferred to approach these situations with aplomb and a detached sort of mastery, seeming at once genuine and magnanimous, if for no other reason than to avoid useless questions after the fact, but the state he was in was not conducive to such a thing. In fact, it was not conducive to much of anything apart from leaping down from the hansom the moment the horse slowed to a canter, bolting through the front door, and barreling with not even an illusion of grace into the poor doctor's bedroom and rousting him in an admittedly abrupt fashion.

Watson started almost violently, sleep-muzzled and bleary-eyed, barely grunting out an inquisitive sound before Holmes ran roughshod over him in a most inelegant ramble, "My dear Watson, just this morning I have come across some rather remarkable rooms for let on Baker Street in London and since your pension is not permissive of any sort of luxuriant living and I currently reside in a hovel when not benefitting from my brother's goodwill I thought perhaps you would be acquiescent to sharing digs with me in this fine new establishment since remaining too long out in the languor of the country and Mycroft's indolent company I fear we shall both soon become bereft of any characteristics that once made us unique and interesting specimens of humankind. What say you?"

Watson blinked, a look of numb surprise the only thing penetrating his senses at the moment.

"What _time_ is it, Holmes?" he demanded, sounding vaguely affronted.

"Roughly thirty-three minutes passed eight."

Watson blinked again, shock evening out to a general haze of irritation.

"I am going back to sleep now," he said flatly. "I refuse to speak to you for another two hours, at least. Please leave."

Holmes made a distressed noise in the back of his throat that he would deny under pain of death.

"Will you give your answer first?"

"Not at all."

"Will you give your answer when you awaken again?"

"If I haven't already murdered you for not leaving me in peace."

Despite his remaining fear and twitching apprehension to know what Watson would say to the sudden proposition of living together on a more permanent basis, Holmes couldn't help but chuckle at such abject hatred of early rising.

"Are you always such a lay-about, Watson?"

The poor man dropped his face into the pillow and moaned in despair. "I am indecently lazy, if you have not noticed," he muttered, words indistinct through the fabric he hid within. "I never rise before ten, if I am lucky, which is rare, and I beg that you leave me to attempt it once more!"

Holmes did not necessarily agree with the accusation of Watson being lazy – he knew the sort of man Watson had been before his injuries, and it was not lack of drive that prevented him from being as active as he once was – and upon closer inspection, there were dark shadows under the doctor's blue eyes, the blankets on the bed wildly askew, brown hair sticking up in crazed tufts from his scalp all bespeaking of a troubled night of sleep.

Feeling contrition take up residence in his bones along with the anxiety and desperation, Holmes bowed just slightly, murmuring, "My deepest apologies, Watson. Do forgive the intrusion."

Watson huffed out a breath, raising his head from the pillow to regard Holmes, eyes more alert and showing a repentance of his own. "No, I should apologize. I was unforgivably rude. I merely -" but Watson broke off his explanation with a frustrated shaking of his head. "No, there is no excuse. Only do accept my sincerest regrets, my dear man."

Holmes' lips twitched upwards in a tiny smile.

"There is nothing to forgive, old boy. Try and sleep, if you can."

The earnest, grateful smile he received in turn made warmth settle comfortably over the wrangling mess in his gut.

"Thank you, Holmes."

Holmes was in very big trouble indeed.

* * *

When Mycroft was informed of the whole debacle later that day, he demonstrated his usual discretion and compassion by laughing in Holmes' face.

"Have you taken complete leave your senses!" he cried, a large, mocking grin belying the harshness of his words.

_Yes_, Holmes thought, but didn't bother vocalizing it. He scowled instead.

"I was merely following your advice from last night, if you will recall, brother mine."

"I don't think at any point did I advise you to harass the poor man in his bed to take up digs with you," Mycroft riposted, still chuckling.

Holmes threw his hands up in desolation and collapsed into an armchair, slouched and tragic, having been reminded that he _still_ didn't have the doctor's answer, and the anxiety assailed him all over again. Throwing an arm across his eyes, he muttered, "It is all an absolute mess, Mycroft. I truly do believe at times that I am losing my mind. Nothing makes sense anymore."

"Please refrain from dramatics, Sherlock, it is hardly the apocalypse," Mycroft chastised. "It should console you to know that Carfield is coming by this afternoon with your wages for solving his little problem."

It did not console Holmes. Well, not much, really. "And how shall we divide the sum?"

The elder brother looked up from the paper – already decimated by Holmes earlier – with a rarely-seen look of confusion. "Divide? There shall be no division. Unless you wish to supply your doctor with any compensation for trekking all over the countryside and saving your life, then by all means."

Holmes rolled his eyes. "Yes, but clever as my doctor is, he would not have found my location without your deductions."

"Carfield isn't paying you for being alive, Sherlock, he's paying you for solving the case, which you technically did on your own, and therefore are privy to all the reward. The discussion is over."

Holmes wished to argue it further, but Mycroft had returned to his reading, and was utterly immovable on the subject. He despaired yet again of having nothing to do, and prayed the doctor woke soon.

It was just half nine when the door to the study opened and Watson shuffled wearily into the room, looking exhausted yet well-put together, as befitting a military man. Holmes was confident that if he peaked within the doctor's room he'd find the bed made and the blankets folded back in perfectly straight lines and ninety-degree angles. The fact that it wasn't ten yet meant Watson had not been able to return to sleep after Holmes' interruption and had merely given up the attempt after an hour. He certainly felt bad about that, but not nearly as bad as he did when he noticed how exaggerated the limp was that morning, tense lines of pain around the poor man's mouth belying the smile he offered both brothers upon his entrance. Holmes wished to pounce upon him and demand an answer to his earlier query, but he refrained, watching with some tight, uncomfortable feeling in his stomach as Watson lowered himself into a chair and breathed out slowly, eyes shut, to avoid a groan of pain.

Holmes frowned. "Watson, are you quite all right?"

He looked up, trying valiantly to remove all traces of anguish from his face, offering another smile that more resembled a grimace. "It's nothing. The leg is just unused to being worked quite as hard as it was yesterday. I simply need to baby it for a time," he finished with a little self-deprecating tilt of his lips and Holmes felt something desperate wriggle up his throat and threaten to choke him twice in less than twenty-four hours.

And he decided it wasn't so much the pain in Watson's face that caused such a reaction, but the underlying misery Watson clearly felt at the entire situation, and the vaguest self-directed recrimination, as though Watson was the only one at fault for it. As though he had brought it on himself.

Holmes realized then just how much happier the doctor had been the other day, tromping around after him through the country lanes, his triumph in the barn, the wry humor and playfulness despite his worry and anger, the joy he took in knowing once more that he was useful to someone. And now he could barely move. It seemed terribly unjust that Watson should have to pay such a heavy price merely because he wished to help people, and it was times like these that Holmes was further convinced there was no God, because how could there be, when men like John Watson are reduced to fighting for every shred of the person they used to be. He deserved more than that. So much more.

Without much conscious thought, Holmes was up and across the room in a matter of long strides, reaching the side board and pouring out a few fingers of the brandy he and Mycroft had diminished last night. He carried the glass over to the doctor, whose eyes had fallen shut again in an attempt to conceal his discomfort, and fell to a knee beside the armchair.

"Here, old boy. Perhaps this will numb the worst of it."

Watson, unexpectedly, did not jump in surprise upon opening his eyes and discovering the detective rather nearer than was usual for them, nor towering above him as he sat there. He merely blinked a second, and then smiled, still small and laced with pain and embarrassment – neither of which had any business being a part of Watson's life, but so it was – and took the proffered drink.

"Thank you," murmured, and there was such softness about his words and features that Holmes couldn't help himself.

"Do you know of any treatments that might help assuage the pain? Any droughts you might take?"

He didn't dare suggest morphine while his brother was still in the room.

Watson shook his head. "No, I don't take anything. There is significant trauma to the quadriceps; they seize up when they have been overtaxed. It is less true pain than extreme tension in the muscles."

Holmes was not entirely sure how "extreme tension" was different from "true pain", and what exactly qualified as true pain as a result, but he was an athlete in his own right, and as such understood a few things about cramped muscles.

"If you will permit me, I know of a way to soothe such tensions."

A peculiar sort of grin replaced the grimace on Watson's face, and he angled an eyebrow up. "Yes, I would wager you do."

He couldn't explain, but something about their exchange just then made a curious heat swoosh through his lower abdomen, different from the gentle warmth Watson's grateful, sleepy smile of earlier had inspired, and unless he was very much mistaken, Holmes thought something suspiciously similar to a blush had crept up his cheeks when he wasn't paying attention.

It was certain, now. Holmes was losing his mind.

"By applying more pressure to key, centralized points of tension, the cramp will eventually give and relax. It seems rather counter-intuitive, but I know from personal experience that it is quite effective."

Watson's little grin was now clearly a smirk. "A massage, you mean?" he asked, innocent as anything.

_You detestable prat_, his mind growled at him.

"Yes."

The blush was getting worse, he could feel it.

Watson, in his ever-present sense of goodwill, took pity on Holmes and desisted the teasing, his smirk once again regaining the slightest bit of self-deprecation. "I do attempt one of a morning, but I don't think it's been terribly helpful."

"It is perhaps one of those things which are better when administered by someone else."

The blush spread like wildfire down to his neck.

_It would be advisable if you ceased all forms of communication at this time_.

Watson laughed outright at that. "Yes, I suppose it might be. But do you know of anyone who would be willing to administer such a treatment?"

Holmes had the distinct impression he was being made a fool of. He despised it less than he thought he would. Instead he sniffed, adopting a deeply insulted air.

"I was attempting to be kind, but if you insist on being deliberately obtuse I shall take my generosity elsewhere," he said grandly, shifting to move back and regain his feet, when Watson laughed again and reached a hand out to wrap around his upper arm, keeping him in place.

"My sincerest regrets," he chuckled. "I did not mean to offend, of course."

Holmes tilted his chin to look down his nose at the doctor. "Yes well. I fear my crushed spirits shall only be allayed if I am allowed my due liberties."

And then, bewilderingly and spectacularly, color rose to Watson's cheeks as well. Holmes wasn't sure what was producing these reactions but his brain was supplying words to his mouth that were somehow intentionally double-edged, and it was a track he could not seem to derail his mind from. He was powerless to stop it.

Watson opened his mouth to respond, paused, licked his bottom lip, and then simply settled into another warm smile. "As you wish."

Around the edges of that smile, the indefinable Something had returned in full, enigmatic force, and Holmes had created that smile, had caused the laughs just moments before, and he felt himself flush in triumph at these considerably small, unimportant achievements and he had the undeniable desire to gloat over it.

He just barely managed to refrain.

With a small, tentative smile of his own, because if Holmes were being entirely honest he had no idea at all what he was doing – oh, the massage, certainly, but everything else about the scenario was all dark to him – he reached forward, firm press of his hands just barely grazing Watson's wounded left thigh, when all of a sudden the doors to the study were flung open once more to admit Simon the butler, and Holmes was confident he had never hated a person more in his life.

"Sir, Mr. Carfield has returned to pay his respects," Simon uttered listlessly.

Mycroft waved him off, seeming oddly annoyed himself, and responded with a brusque, "Yes, yes, I was already expecting him. Do show him in."

Simon retreated with a low bow and no expression to speak of. Holmes wondered if the man was capable of feeling anything, and was sincerely tempted to test that hypothesis by throwing him down a flight of stairs. He thought better of it, though, after a few moments of careful breathing.

Carfield entered then, all effusive gratitude and handsome rewards and a seemingly endless supply of cajoling words that petered off rather abruptly upon spying his own personal savior kneeling upon the floor in front of another man.

"I believe there remains the matter of payment, Mr. Carfield," Holmes barked, pointedly _not_ rising from his position to properly address the client, because he had every intention of carrying on as soon as he made himself scarce.

Carfield shook himself. "Er, certainly, yes, that is why I am here, Mr. Holmes, and to express my deepest thanks, really, you have no idea how much this means to me, and I -"

"— Carfield, I do have rather important state matters to attend to at some point today, so if you would be so kind as to come to your point," Mycroft interceded, and Holmes flashed him a quick, knowing glance.

"Oh yes, of course! My apologies! I did not mean – but no matter," he fumbled, awkward attempts to explain himself. Deciding against it, however, he merely reached into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew a cream white envelope.

"You'll find the full sum we agreed upon here, as well as additional compensation for the unexpected danger to your person. I really can't apologize enough for what my problem put you through."

And he appeared so truthfully sorrowful, Holmes couldn't help but temper some of his rising impatience with a brief, grudging sigh.

"That will not be necessary, Mr. Carfield, although I am appreciative of your concern. That there is some modicum of danger in my line of work is hardly unknown to me, and I am fully cognizant with every case I take that such things may occur. That it did in this case is of course no fault of your own. I ask that you keep the excess for yourself."

"Oh no, Mr. Holmes, I really couldn't -"

"I'm afraid if you do not acquiesce I shall assume you are insulting my capabilities," Holmes plowed on archly, and Carfield blanched.

"No! I would never – yes, of course, certainly, I shall keep it, if you desire, and know that I wouldn't dare to – not on my life, I owe you so much – should you ever require -"

Holmes had a distinct lack of fondness for histrionic clients. But before he could cut across with something suitably scathing, a new voice joined the conversation.

"Mr. Carfield," Watson said, tone consoling yet firm, "you have been through a very harrowing ordeal, and I am sure you did not sleep well the night before. Perhaps you should return to your home and rest awhile. You'll feel considerably less out of sorts."

Carfield blinked a few times, and then seemed to deflate before their very eyes, tension rolling off his hunched shoulders in waves like a pressure valve that has finally released, as though the man had only been waiting all this time for someone who understood his exhaustion. There were dark circles under his eyes as well, Holmes realized, and he was impressed and strangely exulted by the idea that Watson's concern was, as always, perfectly genuine. He was starting to think Watson incapable of being anything else.

"Yes, I think that might be best," Carfield said on a deep breath. "Thank you."

Watson merely smiled.

"Well, here is your reward. I'll keep the extra at your request, Mr. Holmes. And again, thank you."

"Think nothing of it, Mr. Carfield. I was simply doing my job," Holmes said with a slight inclination of his head.

Carfield nodded in return before bidding Mycroft farewell and leaving the study, shutting the doors politely behind him.

"Well done, doctor!" Mycroft grinned, his usual mask of cool indifference lifting for someone who was not Holmes, and it was a curious thing to see. "I was beginning to fear for the general sanity of the room's occupants."

Holmes knew better, and resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at his elder brother, as it would have been exceedingly childish, and Holmes was of course above such things.

Watson demurred, his cheeks coloring once more and eyes averted downwards. "It was nothing, honestly, I was just worried about -"

"Of course no one was insinuating you were being in any way, manipulative, Watson," Holmes said, shooting a glare at his brother.

"Oh? Because I believe I rather was," Watson said, sounding surprised and not nearly as insulted as Holmes had feared he might be. That he even feared such a thing was a very good indication that there was no longer any hope for him. "I mean, not intentionally. I was truly worried about his current state, but I was also aware of how very tired and overtaxed the both of you were, and I thought, well, two birds with one stone is rather convenient."

There was such a peculiar mix of innocence and mischief in his blue eyes just then that Holmes fought his hardest against the embarrassingly large grin trying to unfold across his face. It may have resulted in something like a twisted scowl, but Watson merely smiled back, wide and guileless, and Holmes was decidedly relieved. A very distant part of his mind that was not responsible for any vital thought processes had been very concerned that after being burned and shot and haunted by Afghanistan, Watson would be incapable of ever smiling like that again.

His fears were rather nicely put to rest.

Holmes compromised on a smirk then. "Doctor Watson, I do believe there are undiscovered depths about you."

Watson chuckled. "Oh, I doubt that. I'm just a recovering army medic with a penchant for rash and very poor decisions." Holmes may have decided to be insulted by the pointed glint in Watson's eye if the man had not followed it up with a small quirk to his lips which may, by some people, be termed "fond."

"Well, since a third party's presence is clearly extraneous in this situation, I believe I shall take my leave of you," Mycroft declared loudly just then, making both detective and doctor jump like recalcitrant schoolboys.

Holmes recovered first and glowered for all he was worth at his brother's nigh-on-invisible smirk. He was beginning to suspect some hereditary predisposition for the look and hoped he didn't appear quite so repulsively smug whenever he used it. He was sure he didn't.

Watson however floundered a bit and was clearly worried he'd offended Mycroft through his inadvertent inattention, but the elder brother cut him off imperiously before he could begin to apologize.

"It is of little consequence, Doctor. I am nearly due for my mid-afternoon tea, in any event. I shall see the both of you at supper."

With a nod of his impressively-sized head, and one final, significant look in Holmes' direction, Mycroft took his leave as well, the door closing softly in his wake and Holmes was suddenly very cognizant of how quiet it was in the room. Watson shifted slightly in his seat, the crinkle of fabric on upholstery drawing Holmes' attention back to everything that had been happening before the series of interruptions had forestalled it all, and he was reminded rather starkly that he was still on his knees when he realized how different Watson looked when he had to crane his neck to see him.

It was with a brief, self-conscious smile that he brushed the tip of his thumb against Watson's trouser leg and murmured, "I suppose your leg has recovered satisfactorily enough that a massage would be quite unnecessary by now."

Watson shifted again, hands upon the chair's armrests flexing slightly, but he smiled as well. "It does feel better," he admitted, and Holmes firmly told himself _not to feel disappointed_, for God's sake, it was a ridiculous idea to begin with, when the smaller man continued speaking, "but preventative measures with these sorts of wounds are always advisable."

Holmes felt something expand sharp and warm in his chest just then and he swallowed with difficulty around a sudden constriction in his throat. He wanted. . . something. He wasn't certain what, and the lack of knowledge in this regard was beginning to truly frustrate him. But he pushed beyond that, because at this specific moment in time it wasn't important. With a somewhat dry click Holmes struggled to swallow again as his pulse jumped and his large palms came up on either side of Watson's damaged thigh, and slowly, carefully pressed in. He tensed at first, Holmes' eyes flicking up to make sure he wasn't making things more unbearable; Watson's eyes were closed tight, cheeks flushed and Holmes couldn't spare the brain power to figure out why. But the tension passed, the doctor's breaths coming slow and monitored and he gave a subtle nod. So Holmes proceeded.

It was strange, some corner of his mind obliquely registered, how varying circumstances of physical contact could affect him so differently. The only time Watson had touched Holmes, the detective found his awareness of their surroundings and the smell of Watson's clothes and warmth of his touch immeasurably heightened and yet strangely unfocused. The first time Holmes had ever touched Watson, it had been as though the stimuli were too intense, too numerous, and he lacked the capacity to cope with it all. Something was different this time, though he was powerless to say what, with rough tweed scratching at the nerves of his fingertips as he fanned them out, sinking into flesh and firm, coiled muscle. Something had altered, shifted - broken, even - and instead of a vast field of humming white space in his head, or a hypersensitive awareness of everything around him, his focus had sharpened, narrowing down to nothing but the warm, living heat beneath his hands and the meter of Watson's breaths as they slowed naturally and deepened the more Holmes pushed, the more he gently twisted and loosened the bunched tissue, easing it out of its cramped intensity. Thumbs sweeping broad and firm over top, feeling the outline of the scar, ridged and pitted in some places, and he felt a gripping, bone-deep desire to see for his own eyes what it looked like, to know every pock-mark, every imperfection, every angry line drawn ruthlessly in this remarkable man's skin; to hold the knowledge close and guarded, so that none would ever know it but him, never know how his sated muscles fluttered before relaxing, how pressure in just the right spot above his knee and inside would cause him to twitch, to part his lips, to stutter out a small sigh that was private and intimate and for no one on earth but Holmes.

But it couldn't last forever. Soon the cramp had released and dissipated, and Holmes' ministrations eventually stilled, and as he looked up to meet Watson's soothed, heavy gaze, irises a distinctly darker shade of blue than he had ever seen before, the air felt thick and impossible and his throat was dry. He hadn't let go, though, and Watson hadn't told him to.

"Come live with me," he breathed.

Watson smiled, infinitely soft and inexplicable, and said, "Yes."

* * *

If Mycroft was surprised to find that his intelligent yet socially-deficient brother had succeeded in creating what most average people would at a glance have called a relationship, he didn't mention it. Holmes would have found Mycroft's complete silence on the matter rather suspect, had he not been driven to near fits of vexation at the unendingly snide comments about how he was _finally_ leaving the estate and getting out Mycroft's hair, which Holmes was just bitter enough to point out, was significantly thinning.

"It is not," Mycroft grumbled, and Holmes took a mean sort of enjoyment at unseating his corpulent brother from his high-horse.

"Certainly your powers of deduction have not flagged so alarmingly!" he cried in mock concern as he continued shoving books and assorted trinkets into a portmanteau that sat open upon the sitting room's settee. "But don't worry, brother mine, I'm sure it is simply age catching up with you."

Mycroft glared. "Have I mentioned yet how utterly glorious it will be without you around? Quieter? Saner? Considerably less absurd?"

"Yes, yes, I'm an abomination, you've made your point already. Several times, in fact. Have you nothing better to do in your very busy schedule than ridicule and lambast me?"

"Prerogative," the older brother grunted, and Holmes huffed in a not-entirely-unamused-way.

Watson had again risen earlier that morning than was his usual preference but he had been fairly energized; he would never in a hundred years complain, but Holmes could tell that for however much Watson enjoyed the clean, bright air of the country, there was a part of him that loved the city nearly as much as Holmes did himself, and that part was entirely thrilled to be changing venues. Also, the poor man did relatively little in a day, to the point that even packing up his belongings was preferable to sitting around doing nothing.

"What time are the two of you setting out?" Mycroft asked, stirring his tea thoughtfully as he watched his brother flit around the room.

"As soon as possible, with any luck," Holmes muttered distractedly, trying to decide whether or not he should steal the elder sibling's anthology of poetry by Ben Johnson since the doctor had expressed an interest in florid, Renaissance-era literature. "I sent Mrs. Hudson a wire telling her to expect us some time mid-afternoon. Besides, I'll need to pop round Montague and gather up my belongings from there before closing out my lease on the rooms. If I close out first, I'm certain the hag will try and auction off my chemical collection and the 13th century hauberk I keep in the back of the wardrobe."

"You would have a 13th century hauberk in the wardrobe," a voice cut across the conversation with an amused lilt and the two Holmes' looked up as Watson limped briskly into the room with a collection of boxes in his arms.

"Ah, Doctor Watson," Mycroft said, expression brightening, and Holmes decided it might be immature and a bit unreasonable of him to be so annoyed over that, "It will be a sore disappointment to lose your presence around the manor. I strongly hope you know what you're doing, moving in with my brother permanently."

If Holmes was given to exceptionally violent fits of rage, he might have lobbed something at his brother's large head. Instead he glared, because _of course_ Watson had no idea what he was doing and Holmes was merely hoping to hurry up and get the doctor to their very charming new digs before the man came to his senses and realized this was the worst idea in history, if Mycroft didn't bungle the whole thing for him in the next few minutes.

But Watson only chuckled, wry grin in place. "Nothing could be worse than Afghanistan," was all he said, and Holmes didn't know how to feel about being compared to a warzone.

Then the doctor moved over to him, boxes still in his arms. "These are yours, I suspect, thought I have no idea how any of it came to be in my room, and I think one of them was moving."

"Did you check to see what was in it?" Holmes asked, taking the boxes and dumping then unceremoniously in the portmanteau.

Watson grimaced. "It seemed better not to know."

"I disagree. It could be very useful to know if the creature was poisonous or not," Holmes said offhanded, darting across the room where he missed Watson's blanched expression.

"_Poisonous_? You've kept unidentified, poisonous creatures in my room?" he demanded, outraged.

Holmes waved his hand. "Well of course! They couldn't very well have been kept in my room, they would have surely killed my other specimens."

Watson looked completely speechless, whereas Mycroft simply glowered.

"What exactly have you done to my guest rooms, Sherlock?"

The detective glared back. "Nothing that cannot be replaced or repaired with a modest sum of money!"

Mycroft breathed deeply, looking apoplectic but trying to swallow it, and it was apparently very, very bitter.

Watson resorted to laughing, with a touch of hysteria, and covering his eyes with a tanned palm. "I really have lost my mind," he muttered, before expelling an exasperated sigh. Leveling a pointed look at Holmes - who merely stood there, reluctantly yet ravenously intrigued by the man's reactions - he said, "I have a feeling you and I are going to require a discussion on boundaries, Mr. Holmes."

A playful grin belied the words, and Holmes responded in kind before returning to his eclectic search for his belongings.

"Apart from the occasional sentient receptacle, how is your packing coming along, dear doctor?"

"Finished, really."

Holmes started at that.

"So soon? I realize you military men are rather fastidious and efficient, but I confess myself shocked at the exact level to which you've aspired!"

Watson rolled his eyes as he began organizing all the detritus Holmes had scattered across Mycroft's desk over the course of the morning into neat, easily identified piles. They _had been_ organized in a perfectly acceptable system, and he would have words with the man about how Holmes' system _worked for him_ and really none other would do, but it could wait until he had his answers.

"If you will recall, Holmes, I had only one decently-sized valise with me when I arrived in London, and it did in fact contain all my worldly possessions. It only took about half an hour to gather it all together."

"Ah," was Holmes' rather inspired comment to that, and he decided the doctor's system was fair enough.

Things proceeded rather quietly from there, Holmes far too busy and Mycroft far too uninterested and Watson far too exasperated for any true bantering, but it was a comfortable quiet, and gave Holmes some hope that perhaps his attempts to live with another person would not quite go up in the flames Mycroft expected them to – and Holmes, too, if he were being honest. The morning ticked easily by into early afternoon with hardly any exchange between the men, except for the time when Watson tapped Holmes on the shoulder and held up the Ben Johnson anthology with a skeptical eyebrow. Holmes had just smiled winningly and tossed the thing over his shoulder onto an armchair, to which Watson smothered a chuckle under his breath. Holmes had in fact lost track of the time, and only became truly cognizant of his surroundings when he realized there was a fourth person in the room whom he did not remember entering.

It was Simon, unsurprisingly, standing at Mycroft's elbow, and Holmes would have spared it no further thought than that, if Mycroft didn't look so very disgruntled.

He sighed and said, "Yes, I suppose, send him in. But don't bother with a tea set, I cannot imagine he will stay long."

Simon bowed his way out of the door again, and Mycroft looked over, deliberately locking gazes with his brother and a look of grim resignation in his features, and perhaps something like apology. Holmes had only managed to frown slightly in return before the door once more opened to admit Mycroft's latest caller.

Holmes felt a large portion of his internal organs plummet to his shoes.

The caller was Reginald Musgrave.

He looked well, as was to be expected of one who wanted for nothing, and there was the same cool, thoughtless grace with which he had always moved, as though any given location that he found himself in could quite easily come into his possession, which wasn't too far from reality. Always the sort of person to be conscious of the hierarchy of any given situation, Reginald moved first and foremost to where Mycroft sat near the windows in a wing-backed chair, looking thoroughly put-out.

"Ah Mr. Holmes, what a pleasure to see you," he said with sweeping cordiality, more or less oblivious to the complete and obvious disdain Mycroft was radiating, and shook his hand. Mycroft said nothing nor even rose from his seat to acknowledge the younger man, but Reginald smoothed right over that because Mycroft was astoundingly powerful, and even a spoilt toff could appreciate that.

Then said toff turned his sights on Holmes himself. And Holmes knew that the specific angle of Reginald's mouth was far more of a sadistic smirk than a pleasant smile because he spent the majority of his time with John Watson and had become oddly familiar with the latter expression, and the two looked nothing alike. It was also impossible to think that Reginald would bear Holmes anything other than ill will after he had publicly humiliated the man in front of the local police during the Musgrave problem, and had told him in no uncertain terms that he would poison the man if he ever darkened his hovel door on Montague again. He recalled their last exchange in those rooms with the same burning clench of something very dark and formidable, and the fact that the subject of that exchange was in the same room as them this time around only served to make the deep rage coil tighter, and Holmes couldn't think _why_ Reginald would wish to repeat this performance after his pride had been so thoroughly battered the last time.

"Sherlock Holmes. It has been too long, hasn't it?" Reginald asked with a few forward steps, hand outstretched that Holmes ignored.

He was proud, however, that he managed to refrain from saying that since one or the both of them weren't dead, it really hadn't been long enough.

"Reginald. How unfortunate," he said instead.

Reginald withdrew his hand with a tight expression that was rather unpleasant. Holmes was aware of Watson watching the two of them back and forth with a frown and he wished desperately the man were in any other room of the manor or perhaps in another country entirely, especially when the young Musgrave shot a final, scathing look at him and turned his beady eyes on the room's only other occupant.

"Ah, and you must be Doctor John Watson!" he said, face deliberately clearing into a look of such false charm Holmes had a difficult time reigning in the desire to spit at him. Again, Reginald offered a perfunctory hand, which Watson took somewhat warily. "It truly has been ages for us, my good man, but surely you remember me? Reginald Musgrave, I was old university chums with Holmes here. I know we probably got off on the wrong foot, but I was of course a young and inexperienced fool in those days. You'll find many things have changed about me."

And the bastard positively _leered_ at John, and Holmes realized all too late exactly what Reginald was doing here that afternoon. He wasn't here to hound the detective or hurl abuse at him; he was here for the doctor. He must have heard, somehow – no doubt through the gossiping network of wealthy aristocrats – that Mycroft Holmes was effecting an extended holiday out in Chichester with his younger brother and an unknown companion, and since Reginald had never been entirely brain-dead, he would eventually realize that the only companion Holmes had ever had, other than himself, was John Watson.

The doctor - poor, decent, oblivious fellow that he was - simply raised his eyebrow and said, "It is certainly a surprise to see you again after all this time, Mr. Musgrave. You look well. I trust life has been to your satisfaction."

"Oh yes, perfectly satisfying," Reginald smiled, some unnamable insinuation in the tilt of his lips, and Holmes' hands clenched into fists at his sides. "But you look as though you've been through the very jaws of hell! What on earth have you been doing with yourself?"

Watson flushed at that and Holmes felt something ruthless start to rumble in his gut, because the smile that accompanied such an expression was the same he wore when the pain in his leg flared up and he tried to lie about it. An expression like shame, and somewhere deep in the illogical recesses of Holmes' mind, he had forbidden such an expression from adorning the good doctor's face ever again.

Watson, the dear man, tried to wave the comment away as best he could, contrary to all the evidence that it had hit its intended mark.

"I was in Afghanistan," he said by way of explanation, a strange twist to his smile that Holmes wasn't quite able to identify. "It was impossible to escape such a place without a few souvenirs. I'd say I came out rather lucky compared to some of the extensive damage I've seen others suffer."

"Yes, of course, lucky," Reginald murmured, his gaze lingering and discerning as he examined Watson closely, and by this time even the doctor was starting to realize this was not a normal exchange.

Holmes had a very tenuous control over his wish to take a fire poker to Reginald's face.

"What brings you out to the country then, Reginald?" he asked abruptly; anything to draw the serpent's attention away from Watson.

The young Musgrave cast him a snide, knowing look, as though he'd caught on to his game easily, and it was the slightest bit unsettling. "Oh, just a vacation from the toils of city life. Should your business ever pick up, doubtless you will understand my plight."

"Yes, perhaps one day I too shall know the trials of possessing vast amounts of wealth while having done nothing to earn it."

"I am surprised more people haven't been willing to pay to see you perform your little tricks."

"They're more than just tricks," Watson cut into the midst of the volleying, a hint of reproach in his voice. "I've seen him bring criminals to justice and restore a man's livelihood. Truthfully, I'm hard-pressed to find a nobler calling."

Holmes started at that revelation, eyes wide as he turned to regard his companion, only to be brought up short by Reginald's voice, infuriatingly indulgent – almost pitying – as he said, "Do not fool yourself, doctor. Despite the righteous outcome of his cases, he honestly subscribes to no higher purpose than curiosity. People are not really people to him; merely pieces to be fitted together to make a whole. They are experiments; once solved, he grows bored and discards them, and it would be well for you not to make the mistake in thinking that you are any different."

Holmes didn't dare look at Watson now, couldn't bear to see the horror and disappointment in those blue eyes, to see solid proof that all this effort and all this connection and all these _feelings_ would simply crumble into nothing.

So he whipped round the other way, addressing the vile agent which dispersed this plague in a forbidding growl: "Reginald, if you do not hold your tongue -"

"Well, Holmes, when he does inevitably leave you, you may be rest assured that you shan't have lost him to matrimony, at any rate. Who would want him? He is thin as a lath and brown as a nut."

Mycroft moved fast then, rising from his chair with a sharp, "Mr. Musgrave!"

But he was not faster than Holmes, whose mind had lapsed into a large, open field of blank rage, such that he could not even spare a thought for his actions, only knew that one moment he was stood by the windows across the room from Reginald and the next he had the man in an iron grip round his upper arm and was half dragging him into the foyer. People were shouting, he thought. It didn't matter. Reginald was shouting, clearly, and that mattered considerably less. He came to a sudden halt just before the front door to the manor and couldn't resist the violent shove he gave the despicable man as he finally released him.

"I shall give you a single choice," Holmes murmured, towering over Musgrave as he never had before, something very powerful and _very_ dangerous lurking in the corners of his tone, "You can leave here on your own volition, uttering not a single word as you do so, or I can eject you bodily from the premises. I don't believe I need to inform you which recourse would be the wisest for your health."

Reginald had looked tempted to argue for the span of perhaps a second, but the he finally _saw _the violence in Holmes' mask of tightly-controlled fury, and he paled beyond measure. He spluttered a moment, sweat breaking out across his brow, and he looked as though he might try and beg for mercy, but all it took was one menacing step closer and Reginald scrambled for the door handle, fumbling until he desperately flung it wide and ran as quickly he could down the front steps and across the fields.

He was headed towards Carfield's property. Holmes wasn't surprised in the slightest. He also calculated precisely how fast he would need to sprint to overtake the man and leave him beaten and bloodied in the underbrush just out of sight of either estate. It was well within his capabilities, and oh, so tempting.

"Holmes?" a quiet, halting voice called from the other side of the hall and Holmes turned to see the doctor standing there, blue eyes fraught with something tender and painful, and Holmes didn't know quite what was he doing anymore.

His mind hadn't yet cleared from the wave of sheer black hate that had inundated it, and though there was a very real possibility that he would regret this, he wasn't able to stop himself from marching back across the parquet floor to where Watson stood, grabbing his shoulders perhaps too roughly as he growled low and desperate, "You will forget everything you heard in there, do you understand me? You will mark none of it. Obliterate it from your mind. I guarantee you that you shall never again lay eyes on that odious blackguard and so swear to me you shall never, ever spare thought for him or his foul words for the rest of your life upon this earth. I am a rather commanding fellow, and apart from matters relating to your health or your safety, you are of course more than welcome to question my demands, but in this I fear I must have your absolute compliance. Promise me his lies will hold no court with you. Promise me!"

Watson was silent a moment, eyes wide and darting across Holmes' features, gathering some sort of data that was required before his answer could be given – whatever that could be was utterly beyond Holmes' capacity to even guess at. At length, however, some of the nervous energy left off the doctor; the tension in the muscles beneath Holmes' hands released, and Watson let out a slow, tremulous breath.

"You certainly are commanding," he said, voice inscrutable, "but it is a boon, I suppose, to know the worst about a prospective flatmate."

Holmes was struck dumb, tongue stunned and sluggish in his suddenly dry mouth. He stared down into Watson's upturned face; open, defenseless, completely vulnerable to Holmes' intense scrutiny in a way it never quite was for anyone else, and that realization alone was worth more than any conciliatory words ever could be. He gazed into that face hungrily, analyzing the expression, memorizing it for always, deducing volumes from the slow, easy blink of feather-soft eyelids. He detected not a trace of disgust or anger or suspicion in the utter stillness of those features; that warm, heavy gaze.

Watson trusted him.

Holmes felt his heart stutter a few beats in his chest, which felt several degrees too tight of a sudden, and the blank haze of fury that had shrouded his mind yielded in the wake of something far less transient and far more beautiful.

He wetted his lips.

"John, I do suspect you to be best man in Britain, if you'll forgive the untested hypothesis."

Watson chuckled, warm and uninhibited, as though Reginald Musgrave had never befouled the air of Mycroft's Chichester estate with vitriol and doubt. "I think I can forgive it just this once. However, it would behoove you to know I do keep a bullpup."

Holmes grinned wryly. "I believe I was already aware of that, my good Doctor. Is there anything else I ought to know about you?"

"When I said I kept a bullpup, I also meant a standard Army issued Webley revolver."

"Yes, I had assumed that as well. A man of your courage and mettle would undoubtedly retain possession of such a useful item, even if you thought it slightly superfluous."

Watson's face colored at that, and Holmes' heart seemed to stumble faster when he realized he still had the doctor in his grip, and it was truly remarkable how much smaller the man was than him, how easily his long hands encompassed Watson's broad-yet-thinned shoulders, and that bizarre feeling of disconnect and danger resurfaced just before Watson cleared his throat and clapped Holmes on the shoulder as well, taking a minute step out of the detective's space. But he hadn't moved very far.

How telling.

"Well, we'd best finish assembling your things. I do intend to have a home before the day is over, regardless of how much you hate packing."

Holmes frowned slightly. "And how do you come to assume I hate packing?"

Watson just arched an eyebrow at him. "You don't hate your belongings, Holmes, you made that perfectly evident with your rather impressive tantrum when the maid accidentally knocked one of your beakers off the sideboard, even after I told you it wasn't the ideal place for a delicate experiment in the least. The only other explanation I can think of for why you'd throw your things hodge-podge in the same portmanteau without bothering to look at what goes in it is because in truth you hate the act of packing."

Holmes felt something heated spike through his blood just then. He ignored it, instead sniffing indignantly as he stared down his long nose at his companion.

"I do _not_ throw tantrums, Doctor, and I shall thank you not to spread vicious and horribly untrue rumors about me."

"If that is your preference, certainly," Watson said with an easy shrug, and the two shared a look before swiftly dissolving into uncontrollable giggles, gasping for breath and gripping each other's arms to stay upright as the more they laughed, the more ridiculous the whole ordeal seemed.

It wasn't until Watson leant his head against Holmes' shoulder as he tried to stop chuckling long enough to draw air that Holmes felt some serious measure of his control drain fast through his fingers and an edge of panic set in, when yet another voice interjected with a stern, "Sherlock."

The two men started apart as though they'd been caught pilfering sweets, and Holmes felt relieved and sharply vexed at their sudden physical distance. The upheavals in emotion he'd been enduring that entire day were more than a little foreign to him and he was dearly hoping they would end before he lost all sense of objectivity.

Or propriety, whichever managed to shatter first.

Mycroft had apparently risen from his seat and was now stood in the doorway to the sitting room with a look of exasperated amusement on his face, which was not such an infrequent expression these days.

"Yes, what is it, brother mine?" Holmes demanded, trying not to sound as utterly bewildered as he felt.

"I do believe your hansom has arrived."

A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that the hansom he had called hours ago was, in fact, perched just outside the – still – open front door to the manor, and the driver was shifting around anxiously in his seat, trying to duck his head low enough to look into the house for his supposed customer.

Holmes coughed and decided it wise to avoid Mycroft's gaze for as long as possible. So he turned to the Doctor, who was still flushed and bright-eyed and smiling from his fit of good humor, looking in that moment the way Holmes always wished he would look, and said, "Well, old boy, shall we go home?"

Watson fairly beamed at that. "Only lead, Holmes, and I will follow."

Holmes was already lost.

* * *

Hope that was manageable! Thanks again for sticking with me, and comments are always love! :D


	10. A Change in Circumstances

This is not the end, but it is the absolute last that I have written up. It got delayed because, until recently, I didn't know how to "package" all this properly. But, yes. As a heads-up, in this part Holmes poignantly brings to life the Victorian equivalent of a twelve-year-old girl. It's a little ridiculous.

* * *

_A Change in Circumstances_

Holmes doubted he had ever breathed easier in his life than he did once finally ensconced in his new rooms at Baker Street with his doctor and a formidable landlady named Hudson. London teemed around him, pulsing and exuberant and filthy and brilliant, and he had missed her more than he was capable of saying.

The landlady at Montague had been remarkably complacent about Holmes' departure from her charming estate, only insisting that he pay off the remainder of his lease before removing his belongings. They had all been present and accounted for – excepting a few miscellaneous vials and some socks – and despite the fact that the furnishing of that room combined for the bulk of Holmes' worldly possessions, it took only two crates and a carriage to move it all to his new digs. He then spent the ensuing three days roaming the city he loved, reenergizing himself with her bustling vigor as he hunted up some of his contacts and old customers, to inform them of his change in address. He also held a small, fledgling hope that the improvement in neighborhoods would inspire more clients to seek out his help, knowing that the threat of being waylaid by nefarious characters in a dingy alley was significantly reduced.

It wasn't until Holmes was leaping up the seventeen steps to his new sitting room that he realized he had in fact been absent for a full seventy-two hour period and that perhaps he should have informed his new living companion about his plans to do such, although in his defense he had mentioned on the day they had moved in together that he had a habit of keeping somewhat randomized timetables.

"Yes, I realize you probably hadn't _intended_ to disappear for days and not even bother to drop a line and allow me to worry myself to distraction, but you certainly appear to have a knack for it all the same!" Watson had growled when Holmes, a bit shamefaced, attempted to present his argument.

"I do apologize, old boy, but I truly hadn't expected to be gone quite so long."

Watson looked at him as though he were daft. "You hadn't _expected_ to be gone that . . . so you simply lost track of time, then? For _three days_, Holmes?"

He was certain that had it been anyone else, a pithy and whip-sharp reply would have presented itself with ease. Since it was Watson, however, Holmes was capable of little more than a feeling of awkwardness and futility.

"More or less."

Watson's mouth thinned so drastically as to be lost under his mustache, his entire face scrunched with disbelief and he looked about to question Holmes further, but forcibly stopped himself with a very deliberate, very deep breath.

"All right. Do you lose track of time very often?"

"Occasionally, yes," the detective said, realizing any sort of prevarication at this point would only exasperate Watson more. "Most frequently when I am out gathering particulars for a case, however in this specific instance I had some business contacts to catch up with following my rather extended holiday from the city."

"I see."

The doctor clearly wished to hold on to his frustration, but after another heavy sigh he relaxed into his seat some, and when he looked up at Holmes again his expression was less flint-like, softer around the edges.

"I owe you an apology as well, it seems. I've been a little out of sorts these past few days, though it isn't entirely your fault. It is significantly your fault, mind, but it's hardly fair of me to take all of my frustrations out on you."

He offered Holmes a wan smile, then, which made something slightly desperate clench in Holmes' stomach.

"Do you regret taking digs with me?"

It was out before Holmes could manage to shove it back down, and he resented the plaintive dread he could hear in his tone.

Watson started, blue eyes gone wide. "No! What on earth makes you think that?"

"I've brought you to an unfamiliar home in a city you barely know and then abandoned you shortly after arriving, you have dark circles under your eyes and a tension in your jaw speaking of discomfort and exhaustion so you clearly have not been sleeping well, so much is obvious, so you have evidently been worrying over some matter and what could be more pressing than the fact that you have recently taken up living with an eccentric madman you barely know who keeps terrible hours?"

It came out in a rush, an explosion of deductions to hopefully focus his thoughts and keep them from derailing into the mess of nerves that seemed to be waiting for just the right moment to assail his senses.

Of course this living arrangement wouldn't work. He was a fool to think it would work.

The doctor's face at that moment was uncomfortably blank, blinking his eyes as though a film had clouded over them.

"I haven't slept," he said at length, "because I've had nightmares. It's true, I am not familiar with the city or the new rooms, and that has . . . unsettled me, to an extent -" Holmes' intestines rioted further at this pronouncement and _you utterly intolerable git, how could not have thought of that?_ screamed through his mind, but Watson ploughed on as though he knew exactly what turn Holmes' thoughts had taken, " - but all of that is neither here nor there. What concerned me most, to be honest, was that I had no idea where you were for three bloody days, and the last time you had gone off gallivanting on your own you got yourself nearly strangled to death in a den of horse thieves, so you'll forgive me if the thought of you alone for extended periods of times causes some slight apprehension on my part."

There was a wry twist to the man's lips as he said this last, and Holmes realized, with a jolt of something indecently pleasant, that Watson was no longer mad at him, had forgiven him, was now twitting him gently over his faults and didn't seem to regret his presence in the least. His chest felt oddly full for a moment and he allowed a brief smile that only seemed to make the doctor glow a bit.

Holmes thought the chap looked rather stunning in that moment. It was a notion he only permitted himself to entertain briefly before locking it away with his other, less acceptable musings.

"Have I received any post in my absence, dear doctor?" he asked instead.

Watson huffed and resumed _The Times_ that had been resting forgotten in his lap during their tense exchange.

"Not as such, no. A telegram from your brother did arrive, however it was less an inquiry into your health then an itemized list of damages you seem to have left about the Chichester manor in your wake. He says he expects reimbursement at your soonest convenience."

Holmes grumbled as he whisked his scarf off, hurling it on the desk near the windows where it promptly slithered off onto the floor in a heap. His coat and gloves followed a similar pattern, much to his annoyance, but he was thrumming for his pipe and couldn't be bothered with such trifles.

"And to what affect did you reply?" he asked, snatching his pipe off the mantle and stuffing the bowl with shag from a Persian slipper that had been thrown at him by an aristocratic lady who had taken some exception to his grand reveal of her sordid affair with her husband's overseas business partner. It would have been an amusing memory if the woman hadn't moved from footwear to vases quite so suddenly.

"Well, I had thought it would be a bit presumptuous on my part to answer your mail, as it hadn't been addressed to me," Watson said with a dignified sniff, and Holmes swallowed a chuckle with difficulty, "but since you had been absent for _three days_, and the situation appeared rather important, I thought it only polite to inform Mycroft that you would gladly pay out of the wages of your next available case."

Holmes jolted at that. "Watson!" he barked, ignoring the trace of petulance.

"Oh, do stow it, Holmes, I'm quite certain your brother severely underestimated the damages on purpose," the doctor reprimanded, turning to the next page of the rag with a decisive snap.

The detective maintained his brutally affronted air for all of two seconds before he dissolved into a fit of startled laughter, removing his pipe hastily so as not to choke.

"What? What do you find so amusing?"

Holmes grinned. "Nothing, my dear Watson, nothing at all."

Watson observed him skeptically for a moment before a slow smile quirked the side of his mouth.

"Madman," he muttered, eyes drifting back to the paper. The curve of his lips made the word sound unmistakably tender, and Holmes jammed his pipe back in place to stop any potential lapses in his control from being accidentally vocalized.

This was the other reason that living with Watson was, in point of fact, a terrible idea. Having him close, all the time, whenever Holmes wanted his attention was heady and wonderful and dangerous. And Holmes desired it almost more than he'd desired anything in his life: more than the puzzles, more than the work, more than the drugs or his own genius. And it was certain to ruin him one day, possibly sooner rather than later, tear him inside out and leave him broken and confused and utterly, horribly alone. But he needed it, now, and there was nothing for it. Holmes would simply take whatever the good doctor gave him, whatever small little intimacies Watson was willing to share and be content with that.

Even though he wanted so much more.

The largest problem, however, was that he wasn't even sure what it was he wanted. Only that it was more than what he had now, and he felt confident that he would never have it. After all, if Holmes was incapable of naming it, knew not how to ask for it, then the only way he could ever have it was if Watson gave it to him, but if he couldn't even put a name to it, would he know it if it was offered? He wanted to think yes, but he couldn't be sure, and the only way to be sure would jeopardize even this innocuous start with the doctor and Holmes would not, under any circumstances, hasten the unraveling of whatever this marvelous thing was.

Because unravel it would, eventually.

So Holmes would savor what he had whilst he had it.

* * *

Life at Baker Street was almost alarmingly pleasant, and since Holmes was hard-pressed to recall any living situation he'd been in that did not lean somewhat into the category of "intolerable," he was at something of a loss. Mrs. Hudson was forthright and dutiful and just the slightest bit motherly, tsking here at an unfinished breakfast (of which there was much tsking, in Holmes' general direction) or sighing there when the doctor limped heavier than usual. She emerged from her rooms on the bottom floor with breakfast every morning, without ever being asked, and often times despite Holmes' protests that he rarely ate such a meal on the best of days and never when he had a case.

The formidable woman would merely raise a thin eyebrow, displaying an unimpressed mien more masterfully than Mycroft had ever done.

Holmes, to his horror, had been sufficiently cowed. He no longer refused the food, in her presence, but he did persist in trying to foist the majority of his meals off on Watson.

"And why have my rashers doubled in number since I last looked at this plate?" he asked of a morning, not in the slightest bit fooled.

Holmes deliberately kept his gaze on the bow of his violin in one hand, applying the rosin with the other. "I'm not at all peckish today, old boy. A new puzzle has recently come into my purview and I fear all my faculties must be bent towards that purpose."

He could feel Watson's gaze narrowing from across the table. "And what puzzle is this? I've not heard anything of it."

"I wished to assemble more of the details in my mind before I presented it to anyone, even my dear biographer."

Holmes grinned wryly at the startled look on the doctor's face, blue eyes wide and a fetching blush spreading across his cheeks as he stuttered to reply, "I – surely you don't think – not that I – I didn't – oh hang it, how the devil did you find out?"

He laughed, briefly. "Your notebook rarely leaves your side, Watson. Even were I not the world's only consulting detective, it would be difficult not to notice you sneaking it out of your coat pocket whenever a client arrives with their tale. I have noticed you writing in it as well on the occasions on which you've accompanied me to question suspects, and you always flip to those exact same pages of an evening when I am explaining the rather rudimentary denouement of that particular problem. So you are obviously keeping a log of sorts of my cases, however you mentioned during our stay in Chichester that you also wrote creatively, and since you are not quite recovered yet to resume your work as a general practitioner, it would be ludicrous to assume an imaginative mind such as yours would be content at simple rote documentation. You write on separate sheaves of blank paper on the afternoons when I am engaged with a chemical experiment or deep in thought – no doubt because you think I'm less likely to notice – while constantly referring back to the book in which you've taken notes. Thus, you are reframing the events of any given case into some kind of narrative and wish to keep your facts straight. Obviously, then, you are writing stories about me, or my cases, rather."

Watson looked momentarily astounded by the deduction, as he frequently did, expression one of open wonderment with the vague traces of bemusement around the edges. But then the nature of the deduction resettled in his mind and he flushed a darker red, looking distinctly uncomfortable, and a little worried.

Holmes frowned at this unforeseen development.

"I am sorry if they offend you at all, Holmes," the doctor said, eyes now averted to the tiger skin rug before the fireplace, "I never meant to intrude on your privacy, I swear it, and if it seems to you like a violation of any sort, of course I'll stop at once. I simply -" he paused a moment, and if anything seemed to blush even more, "I suppose it all seems rather surreal, at times. At night when I lay down to sleep it is difficult to believe any of this is happening. I honestly never – but no matter. If it bothers you, Holmes, I swear it won't happen again."

There was something there, Holmes knew it, something Watson hadn't said, and it niggled at Holmes' mind, deep and imminently important. But it was gone the next minute when Holmes hastened instead to reassure the doctor that it was all quite fine.

"I've no objection to it, Watson. Don't trouble yourself over that. In fact, I find it rather flattering," he said with a grin.

Watson actually chuckled at that, looking considerably less awkward, his blue eyes rising once more to meet Holmes' and they sparked with something happy and mischievous.

"Well, that certainly is a dilemma. I don't know if this sitting room can house any expansion of your ego."

The detective huffed, looking down his nose at his companion. "I'll have you know I am the very soul of practicality, my dear doctor, and that precludes a grandiose sense of self."

The smaller man burst out with a sudden bark of amusement, smiling radiantly at Holmes, and saying, "You are an abominable liar, my good man, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

"Shame requires energy better exerted in the search for truth, Watson."

"Indeed," he murmured, lifting his cup of tea and draining the last of it in one arch of his desert-brushed throat, before rising from his seat. "I'm off to my club, then. I ran into an old friend of mine from St. Bart's there the other day and he was anxious to meet up again. You said you used the labs at Bart's, perhaps you know him? His name is Stamford."

Of course Holmes knew him. He was a passably bland fellow with mediocre intellect and no imagination whatsoever. He was decent for a superficial conversation on the properties of chemicals, but a deeper analysis of reagents and reactants was more than lost on him. Holmes had tolerated him fine during his bleaker days commandeering the labs in a desperate excuse not to remain a second longer than necessary at Montague St and hadn't had any cause to think ill of the man before.

Now he disliked him intensely. Which was repulsively childish of him, and perhaps not entirely acceptable: to have such an objection to a man simply because he occupied his companion's attention which could otherwise be focused on the detective himself? He was far more interesting than Stamford, anyway, and it seemed a terrible waste of Watson's very valuable time to spend it in such plebian company.

Holmes thought better of mentioning any of this.

"Stamford? Yes, of course I know him. I believe he is a general practitioner like yourself."

Watson looked at him a moment, his gaze turning the slightest bit calculating, and Holmes was unsettled to realize there might well be a chance he was found out.

The moment passed, and the doctor simply shook his head, a small grin in place.

"Well, either way, he and I are meeting for lunch later at the Criterion if you have any wish to join us."

"No, no, I shall be busy with my latest chemical project all day, I fear," Holmes said loftily, waving his violin bow for emphasis.

"Right. Do try not to burn down the rooms, if you can manage it. I'd rather not be evicted only a month into my stay here."

"I make no promises."

Watson rolled his eyes before moving to the door of the sitting room, doubtless in pursuit of his hat and coat which would be hanging up neatly on the door of his wardrobe. Holmes looked to the doctor's desk at the other end of the room, then, and frowned. _But he's left his gloves…why would he…_

"And clever as all that was, Holmes, you are in fact an abominable liar. I do know a diversionary tactic when I see one," Watson said, head poking back into the room from the landing, "If those rashers haven't been consumed by the time I return for my gloves I shall force them down your throat myself. I am a doctor, after all."

Holmes had encountered many physicians in his life, both nefarious and dutifully well-meaning, and he could say without repudiation he had never seen a glare so intimidating from any one of them. The moment Watson was gone, Holmes took up the plate with his helping of rashers and, after a second of deliberation, turned in his seat towards the fire that glowed in the hearth beside him, and -

"If I find those rashers in the fire grate, Holmes, there will be consequences that you will very much regret."

For a moment, he was tempted to try it anyway and see what sort of consequences Watson intended to enact on him. And then he thought of the horse thieves in the abandoned barn, and ate the rashers without further delay.

Holmes was beginning to learn, slowly, that there were some issues on which he should not test his doctor if he valued his health. His health, ironically, being one of them.

He was also now absolutely positive that there was no one else like John Watson in the entire scope of the world, and that Holmes was bloody well keeping him.

* * *

The consulting business at Baker St. picked up quite notably not long after word had circulated about Holmes' change in residence; cases had fairly doubled since he'd first arrived in the city, but considering he had at one time an average of one case every two months, doubling that number wasn't nearly as impressive as it seemed. In the midst of this he became familiar with a few Scotland Yard Inspectors by names of Lestrade and Gregson. Each on his own was more or less tolerable, but together they were a veritable comedy of errors, though it was only humorous for a brief period before it simply became painful to watch.

Lestrade was given to the typical failings of the London police force, in that he was so fixed on making the facts of a crime fit his preconceived notions of how it happened that more often than not he went off after a red herring and let the real criminal go free. While sorely lacking in imagination, Lestrade made up for it in sheer dogged determination, and a grudging willingness to let Holmes operate on his own terms. Gregson was far less accommodating, demanding the detective follow every investigation to the very letter of the law and rebuking him harshly if he deviated – leading to a _very_ heated discussion in which Holmes pointed out, among other less flattering things, that he in fact was not a police officer, and if he had been, Gregson would long be out of the job. Gregson leaned more towards abstract thinking, however, which made explanations with him much easier, however his approach to many cases was the path of least resistance, verging on the outright sloppy. All told, if Holmes were pressed to choose, he'd option to work with Lestrade over Gregson any day.

In all this the good doctor was a welcomed yet intermittent presence. Through his association with Stamford – which Holmes succeeded most days in pretending didn't exist – he had procured a part-time position at St. Bart's doing locum work when one of the regular physicians was away, giving him a schedule almost as unpredictable as Holmes'. When he was available, though, he was always more than willing to accompany Holmes on some of his less adventurous jaunts: the man was recovering well from his bout of bad health, if somewhat slowly, but the leg and shoulder still ached in inclement weather and under exertion, so he took great care to keep Watson out of the apprehension of the culprit, in case anything should go awry. He knew Watson could handle himself, he recalled the four felled horse thieves in the barn in Sussex, but part of him couldn't help but be concerned that that had been largely attributed to an element of surprise. If the doctor were ever to be put up against an enraged serial killer or a desperate jewelry thief, man-to-man, he could not say with all certainty that Watson would be the victor.

Or alive.

So Holmes eluded the doctor's every attempt to sound out when he and the Yard were closing in on a suspect, ignoring every displeased glance and every exasperated huff of breath as he threw cheery non-answers over his shoulder, grabbing up his overcoat and barreling down the seventeen steps out to the hansom waiting near in the road. It tended to put Watson in a bit of a mood, and by late night Holmes would return to an atmosphere in the sitting room that bordered on hostile. Some nights Watson wouldn't speak to him at all, and some nights he stormed from the room the moment Holmes entered, and some nights he would store up an impressive amount of ire and work the detective's conscience over for a good hour. Most nights he could be soothed, though, once Holmes poured them both a brandy and took up his Stradivarius, playing first Beethoven, then Mendelssohn, and finishing with a jaunty Mozart fugue, subtly lifting the doctor out of his brown study and relaxing him enough that restful sleep would be achievable. Yet every night, every single time Holmes was out late into the evening or early day, chasing criminals or following a lead or hunting for clues; every night, Watson waited up. And every time Holmes saw him, something warm and eel-like squirmed in his chest with delight. Something inside him was pleased on a primal level to see the doctor sitting in his armchair near the dwindling fire, reading aggressively or lightly dozing, but still waiting. For him.

He wanted the doctor to always wait for him.

He didn't know how much longer he would.

* * *

The night that Holmes came home injured, however, was an entirely different matter. It had been later than usual, for starters, because apparently significant blood-loss slowed a person down some, and so by the time he finally struggled up the steps to the sitting room of 221B, the fire had dwindled to feeble embers and Watson was fast asleep in his armchair. Knowing how uncomfortable the doctor's shoulder became when cramped in one position for too long, Holmes thought it pertinent to wake the fellow before he retired himself to tend to his own hurts.

It was something of a calculated error on his part.

Nudging Watson with the hand that wasn't sluggishly dripping blood onto the carpet – Mrs. Hudson would object, no doubt – Holmes murmured, "Come now, old boy, up with you. You'll be intolerable in the morning otherwise."

The doctor stirred, muscles in his shoulders and arms fluttering as they subtly stretched, before blue eyes blinked slowly open. They glanced up then, taking Holmes in with a look so sleepy and warm and content that he felt his breath seize up in his chest.

And then realization fell, and with it a hardening of those blue eyes to tempered steel.

"What time is it, Holmes?"

"Tut tut, you are in no condition for trivialities, my good man. Your goodnight's sleep is but a flight of steps away," the detective threw out casually as he moved quickly over to the sideboard, making sure to keep his injured hand out of sight.

"Holmes," Watson repeated, "What. Time. Is it?"

He shuffled aimlessly with the remainders of the paper and some post that had come whilst he was out. "Oh, perhaps half four."

A startled choking sound over his shoulder. "It's half past four _in the morning_?" Watson cried, rather louder than was necessary in the nearly-silent sitting room.

"While I find your vehement concern rather touching on a personal level, you may wish to curb your enthusiasm before Mrs. Hudson arrives to murder us both for knocking her up at such an inconvenient time."

"Holmes, what the Devil were you doing until half past four in the morning?" the doctor barreled on, clearly in no humor to be humored this time.

Holmes flapped his hand carelessly as he came across several opened letters addressed to Watson. _One from St. Bart's, his services no longer required for the time as his senior physician has just returned from his vacation to Cornwall with a woman who is not his wife. One from Stamford, no doubt asking for confirmation on dinner plans at Simpson's tomorrow, or rather today. Will need to think of suitable distraction in the interim. Telegram from . . . _Mycroft_! Brother has no business maintaining a correspondence with my doctor any longer. Will put an end to this by intercepting all post from now on and discreetly disposing of offending telegrams. Another letter under that, most recently opened, postmark not from London . . . _

"Holmes. _Holmes!_" Watson hissed in the dark, "Holmes, what is that on your hand?"

He froze, wounded hand clenching unconsciously when he realized he had in fact waved the wrong one about. _Imbecile. Can you keep nothing from this man? Does your mind simply turn to rot in his presence?_

It certainly seemed to.

"It's nothing, really, Watson, do not trouble over it."

Holmes heard a muffled curse and then the doctor levered himself out of his armchair and crossed the room to him in a matter of a few strides. Strong hands gripped his arms, about to turn him, and he tried to shield his arm, protest in some way, implore him, "Really, Watson you make too much of a trifle, I promise it is nothing!" but all for naught.

Watson forced him round, grabbed his wrist, and Holmes knew it was silly wishful thinking to suppose he hadn't noticed the detective's minute wince. He definitely noticed the blood, however, even in the low light. Watson grimaced, face dark and stormy as he carefully yet firmly rolled Holmes' sleeve back, revealing the gash that tore a quarter of the way up his forearm and wept sluggish drops of red down his tapered fingers, not so deep as to be dangerous, but enough that it could not be left unattended, and even Holmes had conceded that point when the wound had failed to coagulate properly during the cab ride home. Watson cursed.

In _Persian_.

"I cannot _believe_ I ever trusted you when you said you'd be fine on your own," he said as he lunged for his doctor bag near them on floor and tearing a roll of bandages and a vial of clear liquid from within, a tinge of something more than exasperation in his voice, which Holmes ignored in favor of his shock.

"I did not know you spoke Persian, Watson. Or swore in it, in any event. What else do you know?"

Watson tore a piece of the bandaging off and uncorked the vial, dousing the cloth before setting the small bottle aside and grasping Holmes' arm once more, higher up this time but not so very gentle. His application of disinfectant was downright brutal. Holmes hissed through his teeth before he could forestall it.

"Watson, my good man, is all this really necessary - "

"—You promised, Holmes," the doctor said, and there it was again, he could tell, something was very much wrong here. "You promised, Holmes, you swore you wouldn't leave me behind anymore, not after -"

Watson pulled the rag away after cleaning the wound and began unwinding the sterile wrap one more time, and Holmes was rather forcefully reminded of the eerie stillness of the rugby changing rooms, his arms twined round John's waist, steadily wrapping up his broken ribs, white cloth a stark contrast to the duskier hue of sunned flesh. So near he could feel his heat . . .

" – And I've let it go, Holmes, I've let you go off your own this past month and a half and I haven't forced my presence, not once have I demanded you take me with you because I know, realistically, I couldn't hope to offer any genuine assistance, but this, Holmes, this I simply . . . I cannot -"

His hands trembled, like Holmes had never known them to do before, as he bound the wound closely and carefully, and there was more here, there was something just barely under the surface and Holmes couldn't think what, but not all of Watson's current state was due to Holmes' injury. Something more had upset him. Was it being left behind? Was he feeling insecure somehow? Was he losing that confidence that he was useful? What had happened in his absence?

Something deep and visceral inside him grumbled with displeasure.

_What has hurt my doctor?_

" – It is completely unfair of you, you can't know what it's like, you cannot possibly fathom how wretched it can be to simply wait here, all night, never knowing when it will turn out like tonight, or if it will be considerably worse, or if I'll ever see you again, for that matter, you have no idea, the way you use yourself up and keep me in the dark, you have no idea, you have no -"

Watson tightened the fastenings, muttering low and desperate, a hint of hysteria to his tone, and it almost seemed as though he was speaking to someone else entirely, and Holmes hadn't the faintest notion what to do or say, if there even was anything he could do or say to fix this. Especially when he didn't even know what "this" was, and Watson sounded so _lost_.

Warm, wet drops on his freshly-bound wrist, and Holmes' eyes widened before shooting up to behold, with horror, Watson's equally shocked expression. And the tears that streaked his face. Something in his chest clenched _agonizingly_, and Holmes reached out with his good hand, wanting to touch, wanting to wipe away the tears, wanting to hold this man somehow, and he whispered, "Watson, what -"

But the doctor drew away sharply, a mortified blush spreading across his cheeks even as his eyes burned sapphire through their dampness and, if only such a look did not mean pain for his companion, Holmes would find it the most beautiful thing he had ever witnessed.

"I – please forgive me, I am merely tired. I believe I will retire now," Watson muttered before turning and limping quickly from the room, his uneven step hurried on the stairs up to the garret bedroom that had become the doctor's by mutual agreement.

Holmes stared dumbly after him, arm still raised to thin air, his mind a whirring cacophony and yet frighteningly blank. Blank of anything useful, rather, and despite his proficiency in solving problems, Holmes was woefully out of his depth in such matters as emotional distress. But Watson was . . .

He couldn't allow the man to remain so tormented.

So he followed, leaving the relative safety of the sitting room behind, quietly mounting the stairs up to the doctor's room. He didn't bother with knocking when he reached the door, merely turned the knob and slowly pushed it open to reveal Watson, sitting at the edge of his bed, his head hung low and hands clasped tightly together. Holmes' felt his throat constrict just then, and he swallowed with difficulty. He had the sudden wish to rush to the man's side, to take his hands and pull him into a firm embrace, to keep him close and protected, and it was so utterly foreign that Holmes barely allowed himself a moment of shock before shunting the notion to the far recesses of his mind from where it would hopefully never emerge again.

Instead he went carefully, as if approaching a wounded animal, drawing steadily nearer, and Watson gave no notice that Holmes was even in the room.

"Watson," he murmured, still a few feet away, "My dear fellow, what is -"

His closer proximity allowed him to see that the doctor's hands weren't empty, as he had originally supposed. In them was cradled a small, golden pocket watch.

_Ah_, Holmes thought with a heavy sigh. _That would be it_.

Through the cage of Watson's fingers Holmes could distinguish the letters _H.W._ long since carved into the back of the watch, somewhere between forty and fifty years ago, much too long a time for it to have originally been his doctor's, especially since the "W" evoked the man's surname. Watson's father then, who has clearly passed and left his watch to his son. However, Watson was possessed of an older brother: Andrew. As Watson nervously shifted the watch in his grasp Holmes caught sight of scratches round the keyhole on the bottom, more recent than the engraving, noticeably so, therefore put there by someone other than his father. The watch arrived with the post earlier that day, in a letter that, despite clearly being the last one opened of the bunch addressed to Watson, it appeared at the bottom of the pile, with a postmark not from London, and after a few seconds of mulling Holmes finally placed it as indicative of an Edinburgh post office.

A family heirloom left by Watson's father which should have passed to the eldest son, bearing signs of frequent drunken mishandling, arrived for Watson by post from Edinburgh.

Inference: his elder brother had died. Within the past three days, most likely.

And Holmes had not been there.

"Oh, my dearest," he sighed, taking another step closer, knees nearly brushing the doctor's, who still had yet to look up, "I am dreadfully sorry."

Watson shuddered at that, eyes blinking rapidly as teeth worried his bottom lip, and he refused to raise his head, refused to look at Holmes, but a trembling hand reached out, tentatively, and wrapped around Holmes' fingers of the uninjured hand.

Watson took a halting breath.

"He had always been . . . difficult," he said, voice cracked and whispered. "He was often despondent . . . low, would barely move for days. He was given to bouts of anger - rage, even. He was a violent sort. It got worse when he drank. More low, more melancholic, more violent. Mother was dead, luckily, before any of the worst came about, but my father and I had a very trying time of it. Oftentimes I believe the only reason I went to medical school or joined the war was simply to escape everything. And especially once my father died . . . Andrew was quite truthfully a danger to live with."

A viciousness seized Holmes' chest at the idea of that drunken sot harming his doctor, but managed to reign in his reaction. Regardless of their relationship, Watson was very upset by his sibling's passing, and Holmes would do nothing to make it worse, if he could possibly help it.

He squeezed Watson's hand gently to continue.

"Before I left for Afghanistan he swore to write to me, but he had been sober at the time, which was an increasingly rare event for him. I received a single letter in all my time there, and it was nothing more than a sozzled rant about our parents and the injustices of the world and how all poker dealers were cheats and that he'd had to pawn our father's watch to pay his debts, and would I please, brother dearest, wire him some funds if I ever made it out of that hell-hole alive. That was all he cared about. It seemed all he ever cared about."

Watson took another deep breath, a shiver picking up along his muscles, and Holmes stroked his thumb over tanned, wind-roughened skin in what he hoped was a soothing manner.

"And I hated him, Holmes," he gasped, barely more than air over strangled vocal chords. "I despised the very ground he walked on, or I would have had he not been my brother. But he was, so I could never actually hate him. I never had that luxury. And he never cared. He never gave a thought to how anyone else was affected, never bothered with other's feelings, how he treated them. He knew his drinking damaged everyone around him, but it was all secondary to his own self-medication. He went to the pubs every night, and I tried to convince him not to but I couldn't stop him, so I would wait up all night, to make sure he came home intact. To make sure he came home at all. And he knew he was killing himself, he knew what the alcohol did to him, and he knew how it ruined us to watch him go through it, but . . . it simply wasn't important. And I quit, Holmes. I washed my hands of the whole affair after our father died, and I put myself through medical school, and I went away to Afghanistan, and I . . ."

Watson paused, sighing again, shoulders drooping and the shivers finally beginning to relax.

"It's pathetic, to tell the truth. I knew alcohol would be the death of Andrew. I knew he would never stop. I knew he would eventually kill himself. In all honesty, I had been expecting this end for years. But now it's happened, and . . . somehow, I'm still surprised."

"It is not pathetic, Watson," Holmes murmured, fingers pressing firmer into the meat of the doctor's hand. "He was your brother, and he was troubled, and he was difficult, and you loved him. Older siblings always have a way of trying one's sense of good will, but they are, after all, family. What are we to do?"

He knew Mycroft's polite condescension and frustratingly vague omniscience was in no way similar to a violent, self-destructive drunkard, but he hoped to alleviate some of Watson's sorrow, if only a little.

The smaller man huffed a breath, and Holmes was uncertain whether it was offense or amusement, until Watson allowed his eyes to slip closed at the same time his upper body leaned in, and he rested his forehead against Holmes' stomach. He froze, confused by this unprecedented contact, but then he observed how all the tension suddenly fled the doctor's frame, and Holmes realized it didn't matter whether he understood or not. If it brought Watson even the smallest modicum of comfort, then so be it.

Watson breathed deeply for a few quiet moments, his other hand reaching around Holmes' back to grip the fabric of his waistcoat there, the press of the watch's metal a hard, insistent presence, and Holmes soon discovered his own hand had somehow buried itself in the soft hair at the base of Watson's skull. Again Holmes' mind disconnected – rather pleasantly, he had to grudgingly admit – and his thoughts slowed to an aimless contemplation of the gentle ridges along the top of Watson's spine.

An unknown amount of time had passed – ten minutes and fourteen seconds, his mind helpfully supplied – in soft, soothing silence before Watson shifted a bit and sighed, sounding less world-weary and simply weary. Holmes felt this was a decided improvement over affairs. The rising warmth in his abdomen where the doctor's brow still rested apparently agreed.

"Come now, old boy. You should have been in bed ages ago," he said, giving Watson's hand another gentle squeeze, thumb of the other hand pressing into a line of tension in that tanned neck.

Watson pinched him lightly through the fabric of his shirt. "As should you, Holmes. Honestly, I cannot fathom how you let time get away from you in such a manner."

_Neither can I, my dear. Neither can I._

"Right," Holmes said, "To bed with you."

He patted Watson's shoulder before pulling away finally, and a deep ache of bereavement tore through him so quickly he nearly lurched with dizziness. He had to shake his head several times to regain his bearings.

Watson looked back down at the watch in his hands, gazing at it with tired eyes and a twisted expression before he sighed again, reached over to his side table, and dropped it into the top drawer. When he turned back he looked up at Holmes and smiled, quiet and small but utterly genuine.

"Thank you, Holmes. I don't know what I would do without you."

_You would not live with someone whose absent-mindedness and frequent lack of presence forcibly reminded you of the horrid hours spent wondering whether your drunkard of a brother would come home that night or not._

Holmes chose not to voice this – wisely, in his opinion – but instead flicked a brief smile at Watson in return.

"There's no need to thank me, my good man. I am more than glad to be of assistance."

"Kindness should always be rewarded," Watson argued, a vein of teasing in his tone, but it fled quickly when the doctor cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders – a distinctly military habit he still retained, and Holmes wondered whether Watson was consciously aware of doing it. "I do have a favor to ask of you, however."

"Certainly."

The thought of refusing honestly did not occur.

"I need you to solemnly swear that you will not go on potentially dangerous jaunts without me again in future. You promised once and have so far failed to honor it. But I need you to, Holmes. If things become dangerous for you, I need to be there with you."

Perhaps the thought of refusing should have occurred. It would surely be simpler. Because what Watson was asking, implicitly of course, was for Holmes to willingly put the doctor in harm's way. And that seemed a little counter-productive, considering the intensely violent internal reaction he experienced whenever he even contemplated the possibility of Watson being injured.

That calloused hand sought his again, gripping firmly this time, pulling Holmes' attention down to Watson's dear, earnest, up-turned face.

"I can handle myself, Holmes. I will not be a liability. But you have to trust me."

"I do trust you," he exclaimed, which was a revelation since Holmes hadn't even known that until a few seconds ago.

"Then why -"

"I trust you with my care. I've seen enough evidence to know that you are exceptionally mindful of my well-being, which I am very grateful for, of course. What I am less confident of is your care for yourself. I fear there is the distinct chance that you would do something ridiculously noble and foolish one day in the name of protecting myself or someone else, and that it will not end well for you."

Watson's mouth quirked a tiny grin, mustache charmingly bristled and trying – but failing – to conceal the flushed pink of his bottom lip from where his teeth had raked over it earlier, and Holmes had a sudden, piercing flash of _want_, but it was come and gone before he could even deduce what, in fact, he wanted.

This was becoming a frustratingly common phenomenon.

"Well," Watson said, "you will simply have to trust that I'd rather remain among the living than shuffle off this mortal coil prematurely. For one, I doubt there's anyone else willing to put up with your nonsense, and despite your impressively worded arguments to the contrary, you do actually need a minder, Holmes."

The detective couldn't stop the smile from spreading across his face.

"In that case, I promise that in future, if I am reasonably convinced of dangerous probabilities, I will be certain to include you. And your revolver, if it isn't too much trouble."

"I knew you only kept me around for my firearm."

"Don't forget the rent, as well."

"Git," Watson muttered, chuckling as he lightly shoved Holmes away.

Holmes snorted to himself before settling into a grin.

"Good night then, Watson. I shall see you in the morning," and with that he turned on his heel and headed for the still open door of the doctor's bedroom, and he'd nearly got his hand on the knob before he heard:

"Thank you again, Holmes. Really. You don't know what this means to me."

Holmes thought of the endless, nightmarish months while Watson had been overseas being shot at while Holmes failed to start up a private business, trapped in a state of perpetual anxiety that today would be the day when he would unfold the paper or tear open a letter and discover that the young Scottish boy he'd met so many years ago was dead. Never coming back.

"I have some idea, my dear Watson. I am content if you are."

Watson smiled then, that same wide, bright, guileless one that had ensnared his mind from the very first.

As he nodded once, stepping out into the hallway of a reasonably-sized flat in central London on an early Thursday morning and shutting the door behind him, some sixteen years after the puzzle first presented itself to him on a hillock in Scotland, he finally solved it:

Holmes was in love.

Admittedly, he'd take longer about it than he should have.

* * *

DUN DUN! Did you ever think we'd get here? I didn't. I can't say for certain whether the next part will be the last part, it depends entirely on how things play out. I WILL FINISH THIS, I SWEAR, just bear with me a bit longer, yes? Hugs and kisses!


	11. A Forged Connection

Yes, it has been a truly disgustingly long wait. BUT IT'S DONE! Seriously. This is it. This is the end. Finally. I promise that no one was more frustrated by this process than I was, and I thank all of you who have stuck with this monstrosity and reviewed it. It means a lot to me!

**WARNINGS**(for this chapter only): It is incredibly long, just so you're prepared. It also includes sexytimes, angst, not to mention depictions of war and the bloody/gory things that go along with it, though not in great detail, if any of this squicks you. Otherwise I hope you enjoy!

**NOTES**: I hate doing this to people, but you might want to reread the chapter "A Kind Gesture" as well as "A Change in Circumstances" for the big elements of this to make sense, just so you remember stuff. But having made all of you wait so long, it seems rude to tell you that, so...it's to your own discretion.

* * *

_A Forged Connection  
_

There was a telegram from Mycroft waiting with his breakfast the following morning, when Holmes roused himself around eleven to find that Watson had already breakfasted and left the rooms, no doubt to deliver the files of patients he had cared for in Dr. Severson's absence to the man, now that he had returned to London. He was also likely to stop at the tobacconist's around the corner, since Holmes's slipper of shag was woefully nearing on empty, and Watson was nothing if not thoughtful. Holmes made plans to slip a pound note into his pocket at the next available opportunity.

But yes. The telegram.

Holmes knew without looking at it what the subject matter would be, since the only other cause Mycroft had to contact him was over money, and Mycroft was decent enough not to pester Holmes about trifles – especially ones he was not currently able to afford – so it couldn't possibly be that.

Which left but one other option.

Holmes would rather not read it. He had solved his puzzle, and yes, the moment of epiphany had brought with it a soothing effect, like an irritated wound that has finally been lanced and cleaned. But in the light of day, away from the strange fragility and closeness of last evening, everything looked different. Everything was warped and vaguely tilted – even Mrs. Hudson's tea set looked markedly disapproving – and Holmes knew what the telegram was about, he knew what Mycroft wished to discuss, and he knew that, however difficult it was to admit, Mycroft was the only one certain to adequately assist him in this situation.

But Holmes was not entirely sure he wanted this situation to be real. He was in l- . . . he could not say it, not even within the confines of his own mind, not while the harsh, grey sun poured in through the window behind his chemical table and the entirety of London bustled around just outside his front door. There were rules about these things, he was more than aware of that, and by and large such rules didn't hold much sway with the consulting detective, and societal norms were infuriating when not directly useful, but Holmes was only ever willing to overstep his boundaries when the reward far outweighed the risks. Most usually, they did.

This was a far more complicated step.

Polite society could hang for all Holmes cared, so long as he was assured of a favourable outcome; otherwise he simply invited unnecessary trouble, and he was mature enough to recognize that, despite his brother's annoying misgivings. But in this, he was not assured of a favourable outcome. And to discover if the outcome was favorable could destroy everything he already had, which was not something Holmes could survive. But the knowledge was there, though, the thought would be forever hanging overhead, tucked in the back of his mind whenever he beheld that lovely face, or caught a trace of familiar soap in the air, or heard that deep, alluring chuckle. In every word and every expression and every touch it would be there, like a disease, like a rampant infection burrowing through cells and tissue until it choked the life out of vital organs and left him a husk of what he had been.

He could bury it. Though it would always be there, he could simply pretend that it wasn't. Ignore the symptoms, overlook the weaknesses, refuse the temptation. He could throw himself into his work, whore himself out to petty problems he otherwise would have turned his nose up at, payment optional. He could work from morning until night and hardly ever come home, become absorbed in his chemical equations when he couldn't avoid coming home, and pretend that all others besides himself didn't exist. He could lock himself in his room with his research and his filings and only receive food at the door from Mrs. Hudson, could climb out his window and down the drainpipe so he wouldn't have to brave the hallway.

He could never see Watson again.

Something sharp and jagged hooked in his chest just then and _jerked_, hard, as though it were trying to yank his heart out through his ribcage, and his hand was in the air, halfway to clutching his shirt before he realized what he was doing, and forcefully threw his hand down on the arm of the chair with a scowl, disgusted with himself for such a display of emotional weakness because _of course_ there was no actual hook there. That he even _thought_ such a – but no matter. Lapses in rationality were part and parcel with such . . . predicaments, as Holmes currently found himself in, however annoying and inconvenient they were. If nothing else, it proved that such extreme measures of denial would be of no use in this situation, if even the contemplation of them tricked his heart into thinking it had been impaled. He would no doubt lose his mind completely inside of three days, not to mention the sheer bloody madness that would befall should Watson turn his attentions elsewhere in Holmes' absence; he had never once considered himself amenable to any criminal activity, but murder under such circumstances was disturbingly appealing.

Holmes was well and truly buggered.

And yet . . . It seemed utter folly to even contemplate, and Holmes would no doubt do himself more harm than good for even entertaining the thought, but . . . there did remain the very, infinitesimally small chance that Watson perhaps, maybe, felt the same way. If nothing else, Holmes owed it to himself as a scientist and a great reasoner to approach all possible avenues, exhaust every option to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

Regardless of how this little exercise was sure to ruin him.

Well, then.

What evidence existed for Watson's . . . _feelings_, for lack of a more precise term that Holmes was as-yet unwilling to use? To begin, the good doctor was steadfastly loyal. This was not conclusive data in and of itself, as loyalty seemed to be a defining attribute of Watson's character, not a habit particular solely to his interactions with Holmes—he decided at that moment it would be unforgivably childish of him to wish it otherwise. So, loyalty: neutral input.

There was then the inescapable fact that Watson cared very sincerely for Holmes' well-being, to the very abandonment of his own, if the man's willingness to parade into dangerous situations with him was any indication. Again, this was not so very determinate, as Watson was, in fact, a doctor. More than that, a doctor currently without practice: it was a perfectly reasonable conclusion that a man naturally prone to helping people and administering aid would be rather desperate to help anyone, even someone as intractable as Holmes, especially if he had no other occasion to do so. Not that Holmes wished to detract from Watson's spirit of altruism and good will, which was of course perfectly evident, but even the best people had some small, selfish motivation for their deeds, and it—

-This was a dangerously tangled mess. Perhaps he should move on.

After that, however, there only remained the more . . . subjective evidence which mostly consisted of the worryingly large mental roster labeled merely, "Watson's Looks"; an impressive compendium of every expression Holmes had managed to document to date about the doctor's face. So far he had identified nearly every standard, recognizable human expression at one time or another, from contentment to anxiety to fury to agony, and he knew what effect each one had on the precise shade of blue in the doctor's eyes. Being as well acquainted as he was with the man's very expressive face, he could tell also when Watson was walling himself off from someone, keeping his emotions and reactions tamped down and neutralized, and he could say with a strong degree of confidence that Watson rarely, if ever, did so in Holmes' presence. Even with people generally more decent than the occasionally—frequently—churlish detective, Watson seemed to reserve some part of himself, willingly preventing himself from becoming close to any specific person. But not Holmes. Whether he was delighted, hurt, confused, incensed, he never hid it from Holmes. He was never polite, he never once tried to spare him what he was feeling at that moment, and Holmes had devoured every second like a man wasting away amongst the desert dunes. The only retraction to this confidence was the ever-elusive Something that had plagued him for years. It was a look he had no basis of comparison for, no way of cross-referencing, researching, identifying outside of the mortifying route of simply saying, "Dear chap, whatever are you thinking when you look at me that way," which would no doubt end in confusion at best and a pained, awkward silence at worst.

A silence that lasted forever.

As to the conclusion of, given the data available, whether Dr. John H. Watson feels . . . similarly, towards Sherlock Holmes as Sherlock Holmes feels towards Dr. Watson, the answer was: inconclusive.

However, Holmes thought, fingers pressing speculatively to his lips, if the question were instead: whether, based on the data available, Dr. Watson was _capable_ of feeling similarly towards Sherlock Holmes, the answer was: possible. Perhaps even probable. The facts were before him, after all, and despite his—according to bloody _Mycroft_—utter lack of social grace and understanding, he had had occasion enough to observe couples together, and the circumstances did not seem so altogether different.

This was, of course, all based on his analysis of what he _thought _he saw, Holmes realized with a deep, wearying sigh. It also wasn't outside the realm of possibility that he had merely twisted all his data to suit the theory he so desperately wished to be true. In matters of emotions it was, almost by definition, impossible to be objective.

So what was he to do, now?

He supposed the traditional response would be to begin a courtship, which frankly seemed a bit ridiculous given how close they were already, not to mention the very real possibility that he had deduced this all wrong and Watson was in no way, shape, or form inclined towards the relationship Holmes now had in mind. Which would be quite devastating, understandably.

So again, how was he to proceed? Did there even exist a course of action that didn't end in Holmes' ruination and Watson's complete estrangement from the consulting detective? And even if courtship was a viable option, there was no conceivable way Holmes could achieve it. He didn't even know what it entailed, or where one began, or what the usual procedures were. He had never been so irrevocably stuck in his life, and there wasn't a soul he could turn to for counsel, since the only person he knew to be at all familiar with the courtship practice was Watson himself, and novice Holmes may be, but even he was able to recognize the sheer insanity of asking courtship advice from the one you wish to court.

It was then his eyes landed on the as-yet-unopened telegram from his brother, and he felt an illogical surge of indignant fury because he could _hear that overfed walrus mocking him_ all the way from the Stranger's Room. He swiped up the correspondence and viciously tore it open, seething, feeling distinctly like a madman.

The message he uncovered deflated him rapidly:

KNEW YOU WOULD CATCH UP EVENTUALLY STOP. A NICE DINNER WOULD NOT BE REMISS STOP. GOOD LUCK END STOP.

- M

It was ridiculous. Completely and in all ways ridiculous to take advice from his hermit of a brother on subjects of the heart. What did Mycroft know about romance, of the subtle art of "wooing," as he'd heard it called? Mycroft hadn't felt anything more passionate than bland indifference for someone since he was old enough to realize that he was vastly more intelligent than anyone he would come into contact with – which Holmes wagered was around age three. And perhaps that was neither a fair nor accurate assessment, but Holmes wasn't nearly charitable enough just then to censor his thoughts, most especially when his aforementioned genius brother was not there to divine them.

_A dinner. How tragically mundane_, Holmes thought, mutinously.

He glowered at the floor. Then shifted his gaze to the telegram. Then checked the clock on the mantle.

He was in a hansom to Covent Garden and the box offices in less than five minutes, which he felt sure was some sort of record.

* * *

If anxiety had been Holmes' companion earlier that morning, it had been swiftly kicked aside once exuberance made his acquaintance, which it did on the ride back to Baker Street. It was strange, this bubbling, insistent charge throughout his limbs, anticipation and excitement, which was completely incongruous with his previous deportment, and only really proved once and for all that this entire enterprise—though worthwhile and undeniably important—was also completely fickle. Emotions were such a delicate little disaster, but rather addicting once engaged. Something about Mycroft's terse message had solidified in Holmes' mind the chance that Watson at the very least could be persuaded into romantic feelings towards the detective, if he wasn't already possessed of them. Mycroft was observant, of course, at times more so even than Holmes, and especially with regards to social entanglements. Clearly he had seen something Holmes hadn't, whether because he was much too close to the situation or out of sheer ignorance of _what_ the situation even was. Regardless, now armed with the proper data, tickets to a Sarasate concert in Covent Garden, and that elusive mistress called Hope, Holmes thought his prospects considerably improved since a few hours' time.

It was with these high spirits that the consulting detective hopped lightly down from the hansom—after over paying the driver egregiously, but what did it matter, anyway?—and barreled through the door to 221 B, alighting the stairs and hurrying up towards the sitting room doors.

"Watson?" he called, glancing around, finding the rooms more or less the same as when he'd left them. "Watson, are you in? I have important matters I need to discuss with you."

Footsteps could be heard from the landing above, coming from Watson's room, and as they descended Holmes was taken by a flight of mischief and quickly concealed the tickets in his jacket pocket, not a handful of seconds before the doctor appeared at the door, poking his head into the room and looking prepared to be alarmed.

"Holmes? Are you all right? It's nothing serious, is it?"

Blue eyes wide, pupils contracted with concern, cheeks flushed just the slightest bit from the rush he made getting downstairs; he still clutched a yellow-back novel in one hand, fingers curled around the pages to keep his place. His jacket had been removed, but his waistcoat and collar were still fastidiously present, military lines of his mustache clean and precise.

_Ah, but he is lovely_, a stray thought wafted through Holmes' mind then, which he tried to tamp down, but was more and more seeing the pointlessness of such a gesture the longer this madness of his persisted.

Holmes couldn't quite wrestle down a smile. "I am perfectly fine, old boy, not to worry."

"Your bandage doesn't need changing, does it?"

He looked down at his arm, wounded late last night, and was surprised to see a few speckles of dried brown. To be honest, he'd forgotten all about it.

"Ah. Well, perhaps when you have a moment, but that isn't material just now."

"Holmes," the doctor sighed.

"Yes, all right, if you must," he resigned, excitement trying to sour into jangled nerves the longer he was made to wait for his grand reveal.

But Watson flashed him a small, grateful smile, his eyes sparking like a crystal catching an errant ray of light, and Holmes was spellbound again. It seemed intensely unfair that a mere tilting of the head could render him insensible. He would complain, were he not so very agreeable to it.

Watson set his book aside and retrieved his black Gladstone bag in a matter of moments, digging out the bandaging and the vial of clear liquid.

"It doesn't hurt at all, does it? No itching, no burning?"

"I hadn't thought about it at all, as a matter of fact. I assume it is fine."

Watson shot him a look. "Holmes, I have the inescapable feeling that you wouldn't notice if a lion made off with your entire arm, given the proper distractions."

"There is a modicum of possibility."

The smaller man laughed at that, eyes pinched half-shut and lips tilting upwards in a full, delighted grin.

"You madman."

Holmes smiled at this, felt safe in doing so as Watson studiously unraveled the old wrapping from his wound, gaze trained on his task.

"I have been called worse things."

A warm, close silence fell as the doctor carefully pulled the once-pristine cloth from Holmes' flesh, teasing it away gently where dried blood had adhered it. Then he tore another strip from his roll and wet it from the vial.

"It looks very well, so far. The color is decent; pink, not red."

Gently, always gently, he blotted the gash with the antiseptic, which still made Holmes suck in a breath through his teeth, but was otherwise negligible compared to the soothing, almost unconscious strokes of Watson's calloused thumb over the skin at the inside of Holmes' wrist.

He swallowed, realizing that Watson really was rather close. If he breathed in, just deeply enough, he could smell traces of honey and fresh, clean soap, and the tang of iodine from the clinics. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the heat from Watson's skin reaching out towards his own, could feel himself being drawn in, lulled, swaying nearer as a charmed serpent. He was an utter fool for ever thinking he could have escaped this; this deep, all-consuming thrum throughout his body, sinking into his bones, loosening muscles and agitated nerves even as he felt his blood course faster. It was a distraction, certainly, but Holmes couldn't bring himself to care, not when this particular distraction came in the form of a well-fit army doctor.

A brief tugging sensation, and Holmes opened his eyes, glancing down to see that at some point in his drifting a clean bandage had been tied off around his arm. Watson's hands lingered, and Holmes felt his pulse speed up, thought perhaps it was evidence of an oncoming heart attack, and he _wanted_, just as he had the night before, a sharp stab of _need_, needing to grasp, needing to possess, needing to pull impossibly close and . . . and—

"Come to dinner with me tonight."

In the spirit of fairness, there were infinitely worse things Holmes could have chosen to blurt out in that moment. It was undeniable, however, that that wasn't how he had intended to extend the invitation: his plan had included more coy, teasing remarks and smirking confidence, and less raspy desperation.

Watson blinked heavily, as though emerging from a fog.

"I'm sorry, what?"

Holmes drew in a breath. It was now, or never.

"Come to dinner with me tonight."

For a few, brief seconds Watson seemed to glow from within, mouth opening, tongue slipping forward to press against his bottom lip as though preparing to say something, _preparing to say yes_—

-And a shadow fell over his features. His mouth snapped into a thin, unhappy line and his hands—which had still been cradling the detective's arm—hastily withdrew, now smoothing imaginary lines from his waistcoat, now touching his starched collar, now jamming themselves into his trouser pockets; all jerky, jittery movement.

He cleared his throat.

"I'm afraid I can't, Holmes," he said, a certain stiffness in his tone.

Holmes frowned. Something had gone awry. Something wasn't right. What was it?

"Why ever not?" he asked, perhaps more harshly than he should.

"I made plans to dine with Stamford tonight."

A sudden jab of acidic fury in Holmes' gut, and he dimly registered that _this must be what jealousy feels like_. And he'd known that already, had read it in the opened letters addressed to Watson sitting upon the sideboard last night. Had he forgotten? Not likely. He just hadn't thought it mattered. He had thought he knew where Watson's loyalty lied; he had thought the doctor would prefer his company. He thought Watson preferred him.

Something was slipping away. He could feel it, draining fast between his fingers before he'd even grasped it and _what was happening?_

"Cancel, then," he pressed, a frantic urgency creeping into his blood.

"I can't cancel, Holmes!" Watson said, looking affronted. "The man is an old friend and dear enough to have found me employment! The least I can do is attend a dinner that I've already agreed to."

"And I have done nothing for you?" Holmes very nearly snarled.

The doctor started, eyes wide with shock. "_What_ did you say?"

"Never mind. Off you go then. Don't try the lamb, Simpson's tends to undercook it. T'would be a shame if it spoiled your evening."

He didn't wait for a response. Watson's startled look of reproach was the last image that filled his vision before he turned his back and stormed into his room, legs threatening to buckle the entire way. Holmes felt his whole being tremble as though it were a fault line, the tectonic shifting of his world threatening to send him to pieces and his only wish was to have his bedroom door safely closed before it happened.

* * *

At some point, perhaps two minutes or two hours later, he heard footsteps again, steadily climbing down the stairs and he hadn't noticed that they'd ever retreated from the sitting room, but they must have because they were now returning. They paused at the landing, in front of Holmes' door, and he was seized with clawing dread that the steps should leave, and desperately feared that they might remain. There was a pause, where no further sound could be heard above the thudding of Holmes' pulse and barely-controlled respirations. Seconds dragged on, inexorable, and no move seemed to be made in either direction. He felt a damp sweat across his brow. His hands shook.

Then the steps resumed, slow and deliberate, as they continued down the second flight of stairs, growing dimmer and more indistinct with every heartbeat, until the front door opened, and closed.

The flat reigned in silence. His ribs seemed to have become a vice intent on squeezing the air from his lungs, and he clung on, shamelessly this time, nervous hand coming up to clutch at the space above his heart. The crinkle of paper brought him up short, and he remembered the concert tickets in his coat pocket.

They made poor kindling for the sputtering fire in his bedroom grate.

Everything was grey. A deafening howl throughout his mind. He couldn't seem to breathe.

_Watson has moved on_, a voice whispered, unrelentingly practical. _Or he is beginning to. And why shouldn't he? Surely Stamford would never keep the good doctor up at all hours of the day and night. Surely Stamford wouldn't worry him into a nervous collapse. Surely Stamford would treat Watson the way he deserved to be treated_.

But Holmes couldn't help but think: _and how do I deserve to be treated?_ He was not proud for bringing it up, since he had never had any intention of throwing it in Watson's face nor of extracting any return favors, but it was true nonetheless that since he had returned from Afghanistan Holmes had done nothing but attempt to support the man. True, it did not always produce the results Holmes had intended, and perhaps his aim had not been entirely selfless, but there remained the desire to help Watson. And yet that was so easily turned aside? So callously forgotten the moment another _friend_ calls on his time and attention? It was awful, and utterly incongruous with the man Holmes knew the doctor to be, and part of him rebelled against this thought near instantly . . . but that voice, so calm and cool and logical, saw fit to point out one easily over-looked detail: he didn't really know the doctor.

Oh certainly he fancied he did; often liked to think of how Watson was back at university: the affable chap everyone liked but no one knew. No one taking issue with him or finding fault in his manners or having a single unkind thing to say about him for the sole reason that not a one of them was close enough to the boy to have anything else to say. A superficial acquaintanceship only.

The fact that Holmes had, up until recently, been Watson's only companion had not been lost on him, and he had relished that fact. Luxuriated in the knowledge that he had gotten closer to this fascinating creature than any before him. Gloated in the conviction that no one else would ever get as close. He had hoarded every scrap of information he had on Watson like a dying man would clutch at sand in an hour glass; always with the notion that one day it would run out.

And it had.

And Holmes knew, he wasn't entirely a fool, for all that he had allowed himself to be deluded into thinking this might last; he knew why Watson had recoiled at his invitation. It was so horribly clear, every last disgusted shudder. Holmes had made himself vulnerable. Holmes, for once in all his life, had shown his hand, and Watson had seen it. Had seen the emotion, the deep, persistent longing and desire and saw only perversion. He had seen it and pulled away, eyes distant, voice cold, every line in his disposition tightening and twisting until Holmes barely recognized him. For the first time in their friendship Watson had truly known Holmes, and he'd fled.

_Well_, the voice said, more calm and composed than the rest of Holmes felt at that moment, _since he has known me, I shall finally know him. And then he will be gone. And I will be alone. As it was always meant to be_.

Something inside him quivered and died just then, sitting heavy and limp and foul in his abdomen. But he schooled his mind nonetheless, pushed everything into a single corner until he was left with a wide, blank space, numbness enveloping his sense.

He had always been a proponent of justice. Though moral law denounced the practice of "an eye for an eye," Holmes could see the appeal. So with a final deep breath, he opened his bedroom door, marched up the stairs, and entered the doctor's room.

Gone was the warmth, the intimacy and the dark seclusion from the night before. Now all was sunshine and austere furnishings and a neatly made bed. And there, on the doctor's handsome writing desk sat the brown, leather-bound book. Holmes was across the room in a matter of strides and carefully lifted it up. The leather was soft and slightly scratched in places, from going in and out of the doctor's pocket; the spine had been well-worn, pages bent and torn at the edges from use. All in all, it looked very convincing. Holmes even managed a reluctant smirk at how very clever his doctor could be when he was properly motivated.

But this was not the book he was looking for.

The one he was really looking for was in the locked drawer at the bottom left of the desk, shoved in the far back under medical records and empty bottles of antiseptic waiting to be refilled.

The journal he'd kept at Chichester.

The one Holmes had tried to steal and had been denied.

Watson wasn't dull, of course. He was obviously less brilliant than Holmes, but he was far from being as slow as the average man. He knew Holmes was the inquisitive sort, and he knew that, given the opportunity, Holmes would try and sneak the journal again. He would have tried eventually, even if things had turned out in his favor—_don't think these things old boy, you're doing yourself no favors, concentrate!_—but until now had been trying to avoid incurring the doctor's wrath in a bid to curry favor. But he was forced to admit that Watson was craftier than he had supposed.

Rather devious of him to employ the use of a decoy.

When space in his old journal had run out, he had clearly hunted around for one that looked similar enough, beaten it up an a rather convincing fashion, and left it brazenly on top of the desk, intentionally drawing Holmes' attention and, theoretically, convincing him that it was in fact the same journal. Here was the one he had been recording case notes in for the last few months, the one Holmes had watched him pouring over late at night as he wrote up his fanciful stories, and he knew the look of it intimately.

Therein lay the downfall of the doctor's plan.

Holmes knew for a fact that the real journal, the one he tried to swipe in Chichester, had a small, barely visible stamp in the leather at the top edge of the spine: a tiny insignia for the East India Trading Company. And this one sitting on the desk did not.

It was a matter of seconds to pick the lock of the bottom drawer, and the blink of an eye to shove the random detritus out of the way and there, just where he had deduced, rested the real journal.

Beaten, wrinkled, unnaturally dry from sun and heat exposure so the corners turned up a bit, dark stains along the edge which could be ink but were more likely blood. This was the journal Watson had taken to Afghanistan. The journal he had kept with him during firefights and raids, the solace he had turned to on frigid nights when people had been dying mere hours before, with smears of blood still wet on his fingers because they'd hid in the shadows of a guttering lantern as he'd tried to wipe them off.

The journal where Watson had bared his heart.

Since Watson had had his glimpse of Holmes' heart, it seemed only fair now for Holmes to peruse his. Justice, in the loosest sense of the term.

The leather cracked and suffered under his hands as he slowly bent it open and the doctor's neat, angular scrawl greeted him. He very nearly smiled, but caught himself, unable to reign in the painful squirm in his chest at seeing something so familiar and fond.

But no.

This was not about affection. This was not about caring. This was decidedly the opposite of either of those things. This was, very simply, revenge.

The first several pages were entries about school, alarmingly enough. Watson had started keeping this journal sometime just before graduating Cambridge, and had recorded his exam scores with some measure of pride. He talked much about Afghanistan, of his reasons for joining the army, of his desire for adventure and a thirst to do great things and see foreign lands. He wrote of how he would miss his companions, the boys he played rugby with, a girl that he thought he might fancy—Holmes felt a slow, threatening burn in his stomach at such a thought.

No mention of the detective was made. He hadn't expected there to be. He knew better than to expect that, but he had hoped, because he was hopeless and foolish and a glutton for pain. He remembered very vividly the row they had had in Watson's dorm room that Holmes hadn't even realized he knew the location of until he had found himself there, flushed and breathless and furious about something he never understood until many years later. Clearly such a memory had not made much of an impression on Watson.

Holmes struggled to smother the sharp, insistent ache in his chest.

The next several entries were merely lists of supplies he would need, reminders of forms due to the registrar, dates for training, and eventually his departure schedule. Interspersed were melancholy ruminations on how his mother would have been worried for him, how proud his father would have been. Watson himself seemed to dwell agonizingly over what would become of Andrew in his absence or even—Holmes' lungs seized momentarily—were he to never come back. He seemed quite lonely during this time. Holmes told himself he no longer cared.

Then something intriguing happened. The method of recording changed after those last entries, and rather than more private accounts of his thoughts and feelings and experiences, Watson appeared to be writing letters to someone. No name was mentioned, but it was unmistakable that he had a specific recipient in mind as he wrote them, though they were all clearly unsent.

As he read, Holmes began to see why:

_November 18—_

_ I arrived in Bombay a week ago. It's a lovely place, to be honest; full of colors and sun and rich smells and chattering people, the very center of life itself! I realize we are at war, and that my proper deportment should be something far more grim, but the shooting has yet to begin – for me, at any rate – and I can't imagine when I'll be afforded the opportunity ever again to see such wonderful and foreign sights. I shall enjoy them for as long as I am able._

_ It is strange, isn't it, that I choose to write to you. I can't help but think it strange. Although in many ways, it makes some modicum of sense. Who else do I possibly have in my life that would care? I can only hope you do not think it too ridiculous of me. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if you do. It is ridiculous. I don't expect you to write back, only I pray you do not burn this missive. But perhaps you should. I don't even know why I am doing this. My apologies for the incoherent nature of this letter._

_ Sincerely,_

_ John Watson_

_December 2—_

_ It has been quite a while since I last had the moment to apply pen to paper. I have been detached from the Fusiliers and reassigned to the Berkshires' infantry. We are currently stopped in a small village just outside Kandahar. There are several small boys who all stay in one tiny, thatch-roofed hut. I don't believe they have any parents. They never approach our tents, but every night they crouch among the dunes and point sticks at us, held cocked on their shoulders as though they were rifles. The youngest in our fold is not more than seventeen and the oldest is barely thirty. Everyone else falls somewhere in the middle. The greatest sin of war, without contestation, is how it warps and ruins the young. I have never felt my heart go out to anyone quite how it does for these poor boys: British and Afghani alike. It is a tragedy unlike any other. Tomorrow we head towards our next removal. _

_I realize the last missive was not sent yet, but I swear the both of them will find you soon. I think of you more than I expected I would. Doubtless I have already passed from your thoughts, and I assure you I am not being petty. I never expected you to think of me. That you ever did remains the most remarkable experience of my life. Perhaps when I see you next, if I can find you and you deign to see me, I will be able to explain all of this better. Until then, I shall remain,_

_ Sincerely yours,_

_ John Watson_

_December 6—_

_ We saw first action today. Thirteen dead, at least forty wounded, though we beat back their numbers in the end. The sergeant wished to press the advantage and sent out a squadron of nine men to give chase as the Ghazis rushed through the desert wastes. They returned after dark, alive and accounted for but disheartened as their quarry seemed to have disappeared into the night as though they were made of sand themselves. James Brewer died three hours after the brigade returned. He had held on with a chunk of bayonet lodged in his abdomen for many hours as I rationed what morphine for him as I could. He hemorrhaged near dawn as I attempted once more, fruitlessly, to remove the broken piece of metal. James Brewer was the boy I mentioned in my last letter that you never received: the youngest of our ranks. I had thought that he was just barely seventeen, but at around midnight he had told me, with a wry grin, that he'd just turned fifteen last week. He confessed at the time he'd thought himself very clever for having fooled the drafting board. "Now," he'd said, tearfully, "I only wish I had me mum." _

_ My orderly, Murray, assures me his passing was no fault of my own; that perhaps my final surgery was more than his body could withstand, but he was sure to have expired before another hour was up even without it. Perhaps he is right; perhaps the lad's death was inevitable and I had merely saved him another hour of agony. But perhaps the boy resented me all the same. I will never know for certain._

_ We move again in a few hours, in an effort not to fall too far behind our elusive foes, which will undoubtedly result in the loss of many more of our wounded, since time is of the essence and they lack the strength to endure. I confess myself drained, though I have relatively little to complain of. It is arduous, of course, as it is for all of us, but being in the medical tent as I am, I am spared the worst of it. I only wish there was more I could do._

_ I promise these letters shall make it to you, although I can't think when. Our constant movement over the next few weeks will make it near impossible to get to a post of any sort, and we seem to be drawing further away from civilization with every removal. I hesitate to think of where the journey will take us, only know that you shall have these; even if I must track you down to the ends of the earth, you shall know my heart. What you do with it then, of course, is to your discretion, and I swear to you I have no expectations of even the smallest attention, not to speak of regard. But know that I think of you often, daily even, though I haven't the faintest notion why, and that whenever I do I feel comforted. It's nearly laughable, isn't it, that you are my solace and you aren't even aware of it?_

_ Yours,_

_ John Watson_

_January 15—_

_ Our third removal in as many days, and we always seem to be grasping at the enemy's heels, but no closer. A hysterical frustration is taking hold of the men. Some have begun babbling in the night. The youngest ones have screaming nightmares. We are just outside the boundaries of Maiwand at present. There have been several raids of our camp in the night. More men have died. Some were abducted. I shudder to think of their fates. We hear voices over the dunes, and I care for my patients as best as I can but we are low on antiseptic, and I have taken to shredding my linens for bandages and sleeping with my coat for warmth. There is no morphine, and every day sees more casualties. We are running out of ammunitions and have been unable to communicate to the cavalries for support. The men weep._

_ You will never have these letters, will you?_

_ Yours._

_There is a fire and it may be in my head but my fingers and toes are freezing and I thought warmth spread so it must not be a fire but then why are there sparks behind my eyes the bright flashes of light and then there is Brewer in the sand in the blood in the sand always sand the stuff is in his hair and in his nose and in his eyes and in his blood in the wound and he screams as though he's being murdered and then I remember he is and that I'm doing it _

_my hands are red._

_everything is red and dark so dark and there's cold now the fire is chased away by a deep bone deep chill and it eats its way through muscle I can feel it feel as it slithers and claws and it is insanity and fear and pain so so so so much pain and Wellis screams in the dark and Jackson hits him awake and the boy cries and Jackson puts a hand between his shoulders and no one says a word because we all do the same and when was the last the I slept do I sleep I don't remember no linens_

_no just sand. and red always red always dark and hot and cold and bright lights and pain pain deep and I feel as though I've been ripped in half and WHERE HAVE YOU GONE WHY HAVE YOU NEVER RESPONDED HAVE YOU VANISHED?_

_but you probably didn't care and I don't know why you would only I wish you would I wish you were here and would give anything to keep you away safe away from this place this hell where everyone screams and no one sleeps and there's nothing but sand and red and_

_I love you_

_May 14—_

_ I hadn't ever intended to write in this infernal thing again, given my last entry was made during a rare moment of lucidity while I was in hospital in Peshawar and nearly out of my head with fever. I had every intention of burning it, in fact. But I haven't. Obvious. I don't know why I haven't. It seems especially dangerous to keep it now that I am back amongst society, even more so when that society includes the frighteningly intelligent Holmes'. It seems akin to a death wish, to be truthful. But there seemed to be something wrong about merely leaving things as they were, despite the fact that you haven't read a single one of these missives, so in truth there is no rational reason for me to offer an explanation, not in the least because you are clearly aware that I'm not, in fact, dead. But I feel explanations must nevertheless be offered. _

_ I will not write about Maiwand. I cannot. Not now, and perhaps not ever. If I ever have a say in it, you will never know anything about the horrors that took place there. You've horrors enough, no doubt, without adding to them my own. But I tell you, even when I was wounded, even as Murray threw me over a pack-horse like a sack of flour and sent me off over the dunes back to our encampment, even as I lay in that dreadful, pestilent hospital overrun with screams and blood and nowhere near enough supplies, all I thought about was you. All I thought about was how I would never see you again, how I would never hear your voice, or watch your eyes spark with intrigue and excitement, or see your pale cheeks flush with indignation. Yes, even when unpleasant, I treasured every moment I was allowed to see you, and desperately wished for more. I realize that at times, more often than not, I was rather brusque with you, perhaps not nearly as affable as I should have been, to the extent that, should you ever read this by some horrible mischance, you would surely think me a liar. I regret that every moment since I have left you, that you should ever doubt the way I feel, but it's not as though I could ever blame you. The blame lies solely upon my shoulders for that count. But you were as vexing as you were radiant, and I am damnably proud, and I feared ever being honest with you, convinced as I was that you would eviscerate me and leave me in the dust. I was a coward, and for that I apologize. Although chances are you never spared a thought for me in that regard, and are no doubt relieved by our current separation. I can't help but think it must be so, as you never appeared to have much interest in me other than in brief, passing thoughts. But you have ever remained a fixed point in my mind and in my heart, and if for no other reason than my own sense of peace, I put it down here and pray you never have occasion to find it. For through my delirious ramblings of the previous entry, I find that one salient point was utterly honest: I do love you. With every meager scrap of myself, I love you dearly. And despite your disinterest I feel the need to put it to paper so that I, if no one else, will know that I was and always shall be,_

_ Yours, body and soul,_

_ John_

Holmes' hands trembled, a deep sea of turmoil balancing precariously on the edge of his mind, threatening a deluge of his senses. He could hear the din of cacophony at the base of his skull, insistent and frustrating as gnats, and a terrible whisper of dread encased his bones.

Watson was in love.

It was an unalterable fact. Somewhere in this world was the object of the good doctor's affections, and she did not return the sentiment. Holmes felt rage curl and slither through his intestines. Somewhere in this world Watson's lover sat careless and sedate, uncaring of the man she had scorned. Somewhere this woman went about her life, having known the doctor, loved him, and forgotten him. Had sampled his fine features and his remarkable character and his heart – that heart of hearts, the heart Holmes would gladly hang the world to possess – and had cast it all off like so many tarnished gems.

And _Wastson_! That foolish, brainless idiot, for having fallen in love with such a thoughtless tart, for having given his heart to her – and of course there would be nothing left now, Watson did nothing half-heartedly, least of all matters of the heart itself, and so he would forever remain fragmented and partial and Holmes' insides _rioted_ as a fierce pressure built inside his skull and behind his eyes, because he had never felt so thwarted, so _cheated_ before in his life.

He knew it would fail, from the very beginning he knew, from the moment he saw Watson limp down to the pier, broken and alone and he made that ill-conceived offer of respite; he knew this entire affair would explode in his face like a miscalculated chemical reaction, and still he permitted this to fester and grow, had even nurtured this ridiculous preoccupation and he should have known better, he _had_ known better, how could he have possibly fooled himself that the outcome would be anything other than debilitating, and the answer is that he hadn't, he _hadn't_, but still he persisted because he'd been happy, _God_, he had been _happy_, for the first time in _years_, the first time since they met, and yet –

There were footsteps on the stairs. Heavy, uneven, firm. Watson was home earlier than Holmes had anticipated. How had he not heard the front door?

He was about to be caught red-handed in the act of violating his flatmate's privacy, a very serious offense that would have equally serious ramifications for their relationship.

Holmes didn't feel guilty in the slightest. Or anxious. Only deep, molten anger.

"Holmes?" he heard the doctor call as he made his way up the stairs to his room. "Holmes, are you still here, old boy?"

Hand on the doorknob, quick turn, door pushed in.

"Stamford and I finished early, so I thought we might -"

Watson stood in the doorway, his proposed activity lost for all time to a dumb, shocked stupor. "Holmes, what are you -" then those blue eyes spotted the brown leather-bound journal, and they widened with horror.

Holmes didn't flinch.

"What do you think you're doing?" the doctor demanded.

The taller man merely twisted his gaze to look with feigned disinterest at the book still clutched in his hand.

"So, when shall you be leaving me, doctor?" he asked coolly.

Watson blinked, expression slowly heating with anger. "What? Holmes, I asked what you are doing with _my private journal_!"

"It was mere child's play to deduce its location. Only a complete imbecile would be taken in by your frankly pathetic attempts at subterfuge." Watson winced at that, but Holmes shoved the answering spike in his chest away. "And now my question, dear Watson: when shall you be leaving me?"

He shook his head roughly, "Holmes, I'm not -"

"Don't you dare lie to me!" It hadn't been bellowed, but the sheer fury managed to somehow resound through the small attic room. "It was perhaps blind naïveté on my part that I thought you might surpass the predictable, prurient prophesy of Reginald Musgrave, and I am reasonable enough to own that. But it is evident from recent events that you are developing a circle of associates that does not include me, and who have begun to take precedence in your life. And then there is the matter of these . . . _letters_," Holmes barely choked the words around the disgusted dam in his throat, "if one could call such one-sided drivel a real correspondence. You clearly are in possession of those insipid and utterly useless softer emotions as you have expounded endlessly on them to someone, a spoiled society man's daughter, no doubt, who has found better prospects since you left for war. And you knew, even as you wrote them that she would never love you back, yet you foolishly poured your heart out regardless. How tragically pitiful."

Watson looked wrecked and miserable and utterly broken, because of course he'd known all this, he'd said as much in the letters themselves, but Holmes simply could not help himself, couldn't seem to stop reiterating every painful, venomous fact.

"She was undoubtedly of average beauty and completely vapid, the sort that generally appeals to the hopelessly romantic. Probably now wed off to a cretin who treats her horribly because she was too unspeakably idiotic to wait for someone at least halfway decent, not to mention -"

"—I will not hear another word against the object of those letters!" Watson cut in, his look of bleakness thrown off in favor of ire, defensive, righteous anger, defending _her_, and Holmes felt his vision go red, but the doctor heeded none of this and pressed on. "I know them to be the best and wisest person I ever met, and I won't stand for you belittling them so callously!"

"Oh, so the good doctor displays some spine at last!" Holmes sneered. "I had wondered about its existence, you see."

"A coward? Me? You are accusing _me_ of cowardice?"

"I realize the remark may have been above your pitiable level of cognizance, but yes, that was the intention."

Watson's glare grew dark. "How dare you -"

"—How dare I? Simply, when I hold the proof of your cowardice in my hands! Despite your floridly-stated adoration, you couldn't even manage to send your lover a single one of these infernal letters. You are forever running away, John Watson, it is the only thing I have ever known you to do in our acquaintance!"

"Perhaps because you were never there at all! You accuse me of retreating with my tail between my legs, when you were so cowardly, you were never even present! You _hid_, every single bloody time!"

"And your fickle lover, John, did she ever write to you? Did she ever wonder where you were? If you were alive? I'd wager she forgot all about you when you ran away from her as well. I would wager she never thought of you to begin w-"

"—They were to you!" John suddenly shouted, breathing hard, face red with rage, eyes wet with abject misery.

A thunderous silence fell in the small space, broken only by harsh respirations, the subtle creakings of old houses, and the gentle implosions of Holmes' mind. He was certain he had misheard. He had to have. Anything else was impossible. Unthinkable.

His ears were ringing.

He couldn't breathe.

"I . . ." John started, "I wanted—they were . . ." he sighed. "They were all written to you. All of them. I never addressed them or included details, for fear of someone coming upon the notebook in my tent and . . . finding me out. It . . . you were all I—it was cowardice." He looked so low, defeated, and Holmes had done this, had reduced such a wonderful, such a perfect man to this.

He felt ill.

"It was cowardice that stopped me from ever sending them. I knew you couldn't ever . . . I mean, how could you ever think of a simple farm boy, why would you ever want to? And then I was dying and it didn't matter anymore. But then I recovered and was slated to return to England, and it mattered even less, because surely you would have forgotten me by then. And when you suddenly appeared at the docks-"

Watson broke off with a sad, grim smile that was more heartbreak than anything.

"It was unbelievable. It still is, to this day, that you would ever – that you _could_ ever think of me—I knew I could never let you see the letters, or risk losing what small regard you had for me and that . . . it simply couldn't be borne. I am so very, very sorry, Holmes." He swallowed heavily, eyes over-bright and staring at the floor. "I'll be gone as soon as I find lodgings, if you would be kind enough to permit the imposition. Only I beg you not to notify the police."

And Holmes' heart—which had heretofore been of dubious existence—shattered into microfragments. He still couldn't breathe, and his doctor simply stood there, sad and sweet and so damnably beloved, and Holmes knew in that moment if he did not touch John Watson immediately, he would die.

The book fell to the floor somewhere, he didn't know where, there was a _thud_, it didn't _matter_, John was on the other side of the room, thank God it was so small, it only took three long steps, and –

- Holmes' hands were on him then, finally, heart beating wildly as he wrapped arms round the smaller man's shoulders, fingers sliding up into soft brown hair, and Watson seized up sharp as though pained, and Holmes nearly panicked, nearly let him go just as fast, until the doctor gasped a soft, wet sound and went _languid_ in his arms, and he decided then and there that he would never let Watson go again for as long as he lived.

It was a foolish and irrational thought.

He didn't _care_.

"_Holmes_," Watson breathed, desperate, and then his hands were clutching at the detective's back, fingers curled ruthlessly in the fabric of his waistcoat and hanging on as though a strong wind were trying to wrench him away. Holmes tightened his hold, touching his temple to John's and nuzzling fervently into the soft hair above his ear. He could feel the doctor's breath against his throat where his collar had come askew and he swallowed heavily, possessed of a sudden, overwhelming need to _taste_.

"John," he whispered, lips pursed in a firm kiss against the man's smooth, sunned skin just above his jaw. "My John. My dear doctor," more kisses, light and almost frantic, pressed to the side of that lovely face as Holmes spoke, "how can you still feel this way for me? How is it you don't despise me? I am monstrous."

Holmes felt something sudden and sharp against the tendon in his neck and he gasped, surprise giving him pause before the blood in his veins heated to a simmer as he realized _Watson just bit me_. He thought his brain might be liquefying.

"You are nothing of the sort," Watson muttered, his lips still cradling Holmes' skin, bristles of his mustache scratching deliciously at the bright new mark on his neck.

Holmes shuddered and drew them closer together, bringing their bodies into an instinctual alignment that he had never once thought about but knew nonetheless, and he thought his mind, so imminently practical and logical and ordered, would be protesting more to this animalistic abandon, except it wasn't, as though all those previous occasions of contact with John, where his mind had simply shut itself down, were all priming him for _this_, this deep, breathless insistence, this insane need to bite and lick and press and _own_.

He wouldn't stop if the murder of the century took place that very moment in the hall right outside the bedroom door.

With a slight rumble at the back of his throat, Holmes took the hair twined round his fingers and tugged, swallowing the surprised gasp from Watson's mouth by pressing his own to it, wide open and devouring. If he was cataloguing taste and texture and the differences between their respective teeth alignments, he wasn't doing it consciously. All he was truly conscious of was _heat_ and _wet_ and _more, more, deeper, want_.

Fingers were curled in his collar, snaking into the hair at the nape of his neck, and Watson was plastered so tightly to the entire front of his body, making these lovely, lost little sounds into the detective's mouth that Holmes was very nearly driven mad with the desire to take this wonderful man apart, hear him whimper and beg. His hands roamed down the doctor's back, pushing aside his coat, fingers slipping beneath the waistcoat still a little too big on Watson's thinner-than-normal frame, marveling at the warmth of hidden flesh radiating through the white cotton shirt. He wanted that skin desperately, wanted to press his finger tips in, leave bruises that would never fade, mark this man as _his_ in the most primal way.

Watson moaned, pulling back to take a much-needed lungful of air, tugging sharply at the fabric on his shoulders even as he pleaded softly, "Please, I need to touch you, please Holmes, _please_," and Holmes growled low, all the way down to his shoes as he pushed the doctor back and began tearing at his own collar, seams of his waistcoat protesting, buttons from his shirt flying away in his rough treatment and suddenly Watson was right there, strong, calloused hands mapping his torso, curling around his prominent ribs, stroking down his flanks to the waistband of his trousers. Holmes bit his lip and stared, enchanted by the hypnotic feel of those hands all over him and the sight of dark skin against his pale, concave stomach. As a curious finger trailed a slow circle around the skin of his right nipple, Holmes tipped his head back and groaned, his own hands reaching out to bring the doctor closer once more, feeling something tight and unbearably hot coil in his lower abdomen. Lips followed the hands, Watson bending to suck kisses against his throat, nibbling at bowed collarbones until finally he ducked even lower and took Holmes' other nipple in his mouth, fingers still tracing and tweaking at the right and it tore a shockingly loud moan from Holmes' throat before he could even think of holding it in, body shuddering and fingers twisting tighter into the hair at the back of Watson's head. He growled in reply, nipping the skin still between his lips and Holmes made a softer, more helpless noise at that, his thoughts in sincere danger of being inundated by all these foreign sensations and that simply wouldn't do.

He refused to let Watson undo him entirely before he even managed to get the daft man's jacket off.

No matter how good he was with his hands. Doctor's hands, even, firm and confident and—_oh_—dexterous. Very dexterous. Holmes couldn't . . . he—_oh God, harder_—he couldn't think, he could barely _breathe_, he . . .

"—Christ, _Watson_," he groaned, bucking his hips sharply and delighting in a new, deeper pleasure as the heat between his legs met the inescapable hardness in the doctor's trousers and _he needed to remove this man's clothes immediately or perish_.

"Off, get these _off_," he snarled, ripping the tweed jacket from Watson's shoulders and starting just as mercilessly on the buttons of his waistcoat while the doctor stood there, panting and wide-eyed, still too preoccupied with Holmes' skin to help with his own disrobing.

That is, until all that remained was the white cotton shirt, at which point Watson seemed to realize what was happening; muscles tightened and those blue eyes darkened not with desire, but alarm. Holmes felt a brief moment of panic that he had somehow misread this situation—insane as that idea was, seeing as he was bare-chested and in possession of several lurid bite marks all over his neck and shoulders. But Watson's body was very clearly closed off, his own shoulders hunching and curling inward even though he could not seem to bear removing his hands from where they were grasping Holmes' waist. His gaze was averted to the floor.

"Watson?" Holmes asked, hands leaving the partially open folds of shirt to slip under the fabric where he had pulled it from the man's waistband, part of him rejoicing in the feel of warm, smooth skin even as the rest of his faculties were bent toward solving this new dilemma. Did Watson regret starting this escapade? Was he unsure of Holmes' intentions? True, he hadn't actually said anything about his own feelings on the matter, but he had thought it fairly obvious. Maybe Watson needed further assurance?

He sighed, thumbs stroking in circles against the doctor's hips.

"My dear, are you all right?"

Watson cleared his throat.

"I'm . . . yes, I'm fine, it's only. . ."

He broke off, eyes squeezing closed, fingers digging in tighter against Holmes' sides.

"What is it, love?"

Watson's gaze snapped back up at that, and no, it had not been a slip of the tongue. Holmes said it with full intention. He was also adamantly _not_ blushing as Watson stared at him with eyes bright and impossibly blue.

"You," he breathed, "You . . . you said -"

"I did, yes. Do you have any objection?"

He also would deny sounding like a petulant child just then until the day he passed from this world.

Watson blinked. "No. None at all, just . . . you never gave any indication, or . . ."

"To be fair, I hadn't properly identified the sensation until last night after leaving your room," Holmes said briskly, but when the only reaction he got was a nervous swallow and another fluttering blink from Watson, he smiled soothingly and murmured, "I've felt it for some time, though. I merely lacked anything with which to compare it, and as I have been told on several occasions, matters of the heart do not come naturally to me. It took rather longer than the average person might for me to finally apply the correct term to the feeling."

Watson smiled back, looking sly yet infinitely fragile, "I love you too, Holmes."

And yes, he had seen it in writing, though that was before he knew it was addressed to himself, but it was something else entirely to hear the words from Watson's delectable mouth, to hear his voice curl tenderly around the words, how sincere they were as they brushed softly against Holmes' ears.

A tightness seized his throat just then, and he wanted to taste Watson all over again.

But first . . .

"Let me see you, then. Please, Watson," he said, a near whisper, plucking at the loose tails of the half-open shirt, and Watson blushed but still twisted his eyes to the floor again, gnawing on his bottom lip.

"I'm not -" but he stopped, letting out a shuddering breath before straightening his shoulders, steeling himself for whatever unpleasantness he thought was about to take place. "I'm not how I used to be, Holmes. I'm . . . very much different, in fact. I don't really look . . ." he paused, swallowed, "I don't look like I did before. At Cambridge. I'm not -"

Holmes dove in and claimed the doctor's lips firmly, mouth closed but full of passion, trying to stop the outpouring of nonsense that Watson seemed so stuck upon.

When he pulled back Watson was breathing heavy and staring at him with something like wonder in his gaze. Holmes smiled.

"Watson, as I said a moment ago, I hadn't even confirmed that I wanted you until last night—or early this morning, if you rather. At Cambridge, I had no idea what to think or feel about any of this. It's you, as you are right now, that I cannot live without."

Watson inhaled sharply before seizing Holmes by either side of his head and pulling into a searing, bruising kiss, tongue thrusting urgently into the detective's mouth and Holmes groaned, pulling Watson closer, relearning the exquisite feel of their weight shifting together. While he was kissed to the very edges of his sanity, he felt Watson let him go, never losing the contact of their lips, to make short work of the rest of his buttons and shrug his shirt off as though he'd never experienced a moment of insecurity in his life.

It pained him, but Holmes finally broke the kiss, but only to better see the delights Watson hid beneath his finery: lush, bronze skin overlaying firm muscle that had perhaps been diminished by sickness but no less present for all that, and Holmes' mouth went dry as he watched those abdominals ripple and contract as he lightly ran his fingers down the center of Watson's belly. Copper nipples were already peaked, tight and reaching out for him and he was helpless to resist a quick swipe of his tongue over one, fighting off the smug smile when Watson's gasp of pleasure met his ears. He was so responsive, so lovely, Holmes' long hands encompassing almost the entire breadth of the man's waist when he spread them wide, and while part of him vowed he would fatten the doctor up just as soon as he had the means to do so, another, very visceral part purred to see Holmes _possessing_ the man in such a blatant way.

And then, left to the last deliberately, was the scar. It was both less and more than he had expected: it wasn't nearly as large as he thought it might have been, though it was substantial, looking more like a sprawling spider web than a pitted cavern, with clear indications that it had not been the initial wound but rather the subsequent illness that had caused the most damage. It was also much pinker than he'd anticipated. Despite the months of steady recuperation it still looked raw and new, and perhaps painful, so Holmes barely breathed as he leaned down and gently, soft as butterfly wings, laid a kiss to the center of the web.

Watson's reaction to this was the most unexpected part of the entire affair. He didn't shiver or hiss and flinch away and try to hide again. Instead he gulped a stuttered sob and, with fingers still twisting restlessly in Holmes' hair, dragged him firmer in, closer, panting, "More, Holmes, more."

Holmes then pressed the flat of his tongue against the scar and laved it in strong, broad strokes, curling one hand down over the man's resplendent arse and hauling him tight against his body while the other hand pinched and rolled a tempting nipple, relishing the agonized moan this drew from Watson like a starving man would a luscious steak. When Watson began thrusting helplessly against him, Holmes choked on his own wild noise as he tore himself away from that fascinating scar to claim the doctor's mouth once more.

"I need to have you," he grunted, both hands now gripping at cloth-covered arse and rolling Watson's hips faster. "Let me have you, John. Let me take you, right now."

"_Oh God_!" Watson wailed before sinking his teeth into Holmes shoulder, nails scraping down his back, movement of his hips becoming more desperate and Holmes could only shake with the need of it. A deliciously hard suck at the new mark made Holmes' vision white-out briefly, and then Watson dragged his mouth up to his ear and nibbled along the edge, huffing out around a moan, "Anything, Christ, Holmes, _anything_!"

Something inside the consulting detective completely and irrevocably snapped.

A snarl grew violent and deep in his chest and he was moving, moving Watson, pushing him back across the room and suddenly the desk was just behind them and he pushed, pulled, maneuvered Watson up on to the edge of it before insinuating himself between the doctor's spread thighs, remembering to give extra care to the injured one through sheer luck alone as all the rest of his focus was centered on _now_ and _heat_ and _John_ and _nownownownownow_ and it took him an embarrassingly long time to realize that he was muttering furiously while trying—unsuccessfully—to undo the fastenings on the other man's trousers.

"I want to feel you," he growled, mere inches from Watson's gasping mouth, "I want to make you forget everyone and everything that could take you away from me, I want to make you _mine_."

Watson tugged sharply on his hair, drawing his attention to his blue eyes wide and blown inky black with lust and love and everything else that has been hovering between them for much too long.

"I _am_ yours," he said, deep and final, the tone of voice Holmes imagined he made good use of in the military. Something dangerous clenched pleasurably in the detective's gut, and he knew he would never let this man go for the rest of his life, not to anyone and certainly not to imbeciles like bloody _Stamford_! To prove his point, Watson untangled one had from its passionate grip of Holmes' hair to press, firm and deliberate, at the throbbing length in his own trousers and Holmes threw his head back, made a long, unintelligible noise at the blinding pleasure coursing through his blood and making it sing. There was tugging and pulling and soon a draft followed quickly by warmth not his own and calluses where he had none and _Watson was touching his cock_—

"_Ohhh_!"

It sounded broken and helpless but Holmes could not be bothered to care, couldn't bring himself to feel shame anymore than he could stop himself from burying his face into the crook of John's neck and jerking into the loose circle of his hand. His cock was blood-gorged and more erect than it had ever been, foreskin pulled back to reveal the head pearly with liquid and the sight of _Watson's_ hand—tan and strong and sure and weathered—wrapped around him was quickly proving to be too much—

Watson whimpered just then, eyes trained down, watching what Holmes was watching and gnawing on his bottom lip, hips twitching in sympathy.

"Touch me, Holmes," he begged, free hand gripping now the back of his neck to keep him close. "Please, _God_, I need your touch, I need to feel you too, _please_!"

Holmes rallied himself as best he could—given the circumstances—and went once more for the doctor's trousers, bypassing the perilous fastenings to simply rip them open at the seams, pushing the folds of fabric out of the way and feeling through the opening of his pants and there—oh God, _there_—was Watson's cock, thick and hard and steadily leaking in a patch of hair several shades darker than the hair on his head and _he fit so perfectly in Holmes' hand_. Watson sobbed in relief, hand tightening on Holmes' shaft, which in turn made Holmes grip Watson harder, until they were both pressed as close as possible and rutting against one another frantically.

Watson drew his legs up and wound them around Holmes' waist—an image that would stay with him every waking moment until senility struck—and squeezed Holmes somehow closer, mewling and gasping into his ear. It was meltingly good, but the angles were awkward and the space limited and Holmes was starting to get frustrated until Watson let him go, grabbing his own hand to stop him as well, muttering, "Like this, follow me, do it like this, love."

With that, Watson wrapped Holmes' long hand around the bases of both their cocks, pressing them hot and dripping right up against one another, while Watson's hand surrounded the sensitive heads. "Now go."

And it worked, thoroughly. It took a few seconds to develop a proper rhythm but soon they slid together effortlessly, Watson clinging to Holmes' body as he rubbed frantic circles into the gathering dew at the tips and Holmes braced one hand on the desk as he thrust into their combined channels, dragging sweetly against the hard length of Watson, both of them needful and hurried, breathless, the slick sounds in the room loud and obscene even as it was drowned out by moans steadily going hoarse. It was gorgeous and lightening and so, so good, but it couldn't last, it wasn't an activity designed to last, and they licked feverishly into each other's mouths , sloppy, uncoordinated, as they bucked and thrust and ground together, leaking oh God leaking faster, hips faster, Watson's hand in Holmes' hair yanking and Holmes' nails scraping over wood and muscles shivering, contracting, the heat low in their bellies uncurling, reaching, growing _pulsing_—_oh oh oh_—

They found completion at the same time, completely silent other than their harsh, panting breaths and quiet murmurs of satisfaction. Holmes was a long while coming back to reality, only dully aware that they were both covered in sweat and semen and that his trousers were no doubt irredeemable. His face was still pressed to Watson's neck, breath coming in great heaves, luxuriating in the feel of their chests touching with each exhalation, the doctor's fingers gentle in his hair now, soothing the ache his passion had caused. Words seemed impossible to contemplate, much less produce, but Holmes knew he had to, or at least thought he had to. Don't people usually converse after something like this? Especially two sodomites who risk the gallows with each meaningful touch? He was more than out of his element in this matter, and though animal instinct had served him surprisingly well until now, now was the point where those individuals who had any experience or idea of what they were doing would be most useful.

Holmes was decidedly not that individual. So he nuzzled closer, inhaling the luscious aroma of skin and sweat and sex and _Watson_, filling the room and cocooning them both for just a few moments longer.

Of course it was Watson—with nerves and a sense of duty forged in some of the most hellish places on earth—who soldiered them forward, moving his hand from Holmes' hair and pressing it against his face, pushing him back just enough so that their eyes could meet.

He was smiling, happy and delightfully post-orgasmic, but with the slightest hint of hesitation in the way the corner of his lips trembled. Before he could even think to stop himself, Holmes moved in to kiss, quick and chaste, at the corner of that lovely mouth, then leaning back again to look into Watson's blue, blue eyes lit up with something startlingly like joy.

"Hello," he murmured soft and the slightest bit rough, the pitch of it sending a sluggish, pleasant shiver down Holmes' spine.

His own lips tugged upward without thought.

"Hello, Watson."

He was gratified to see a beautiful blush spread across the doctor's cheeks at the sound of his voice. It was comforting to know that he was not the only one frequently driven to distraction.

Watson laughed then, exhausted and a bit delirious.

"We are choice fools, wouldn't you say?" he said, thumb rubbing gently over Holmes' cheekbone, which somehow caused warmth to bloom in his chest.

"It has been a most absurdly convoluted process, I will admit. Though I feel I must take the bulk of the blame."

Watson arched an eyebrow at that.

"How so?"

Holmes shifted a bit, uncomfortable as always to be admitting his faults. His thumb circled around the doctor's bare hip in an effort to distract.

Watson was having none of it.

"Holmes," he said, tone both questioning and warning.

He huffed, trying to arrest his mouth before it twisted into a pout.

"I only meant, my dear, that had I been more observant we might have been spared much of this agonizing wait."

The doctor's smile then was soft and a little rueful as he dragged gentle fingers through his hair.

"If I had been less of a coward, we would not have needed your skills of observation," he said.

Holmes shook his head, removing his hand from the desk to press his thumb against Watson's mouth, momentarily enjoying the contrast between plush lips and bristled mustache, and he wanted to kiss him again, perhaps forever.

"You are not, and have never been, a coward. It was wrong of me to ever have implied otherwise, and I ask that you strive to forget my injustices, manifold as they are. You were merely being practical. Why would you bear your soul to me when I so rarely demonstrated that I even possessed one? Why would you share your affection when I never once treated you as you deserved? Why would you risk your very life and freedom to reveal your true feelings when I acted as a heartless, thoughtless monster? No, dear, if one of us is a fool it is I, for never realizing that you only offered your heart to me every time we have ever been together since the moment we met. I believe it will remain my life's greatest failing."

Watson had blushed to the roots of his hair and tears welled in his eyes, making them burn a bright sapphire and Holmes was right, it was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, so very beautiful, but this time he could rejoice in it because this time it did not mean shame or agony for his love, but elation; incandescent joy.

And Holmes had done this.

He could die happy, he supposed, but only if he could spend eternity thereafter kissing John Watson.

Which he was now currently engaged in, as Watson had made a desperate sound in the back of his throat and then surged forward, grasping the back of Holmes' neck and taking his mouth like the world would crumble beneath them. Holmes pulled him close and sunk into it with the abandon of a natural-born addict.

"I love you," Watson whispered between feverish kisses, "I love you so much, you are so gorgeous and so brilliant, it's hard to believe you are real." He pressed his forehead to the detective's and stared intently into his eyes. "Tell me to stay. Tell me to stay, Holmes, and I will never leave you."

"Stay," he breathed. "Stay with me. I cannot promise I will never hurt you again, but I can promise that I will always want to be better. You make me better. Stay, my dear. Be mine."

They kissed again, passionately at first, but then the weight of spent emotion and spent emissions began to dull their ardor, and the kisses gentled to affectionate nudges and shared breath. Watson chuckled then, sighing giddily, "And to think I loved you before I even knew your name! It seems so terribly Shakespearean."

Holmes snorted in amusement and bent to nuzzle at Watson's throat again, when a sudden thought managed to wriggle through the thick wall of pleasure and satisfaction in his mind to finally draw his attention. Something about what Watson said tugged at his memory—loving him before he knew his name . . . the first time Holmes ever recalled Watson using his name was when he had been packing in his dorm room and Holmes had barged in to tell him what a fool he was being for having enlisted. So Watson had loved him before that? That was possible, but that wasn't quite it, there was something more, something about the remark of not knowing Holmes' name, as though it were odd. When was it odd to not know a person's name? When you loved them? When you were related to them? When you saw them every day? When you knew everything else about them? But for all that those situations fell well within the purview of being "odd," most of those scenarios could be amended from the very beginning with a simple introduction—

That was it. The _introduction_.

On a small hillock in Jedburgh, on summer holiday to Scotland, a young lad playing at swashbucklers had introduced himself as John to a younger, much smaller boy who had sat in the grass and watched him. The younger boy never gave his name.

_You hid_, he remembered John shouting, not even an hour before, _You hid every single bloody time_.

He hadn't noticed, too wrapped up in jealousy and rage and cruelty to realize what Watson had truly said. All these years, since the moment he saw John run into the chemical lab at Cambridge looking for his misplaced doctor's bag, he had thought he was the only one to remember that hillock in Scotland. He had thought he was the only one to have been affected, to never quite be able to strike that brief, innocuous interaction from his memory, because John hadn't seemed to recall him. He thought he was being hopeless and pathetic; delusional, even. But as he reviewed those moments of interaction, those memories of Watson that he hoarded greedily in his mind, when Watson was only his and not another soul was there, he remembered his eyes most of all. The glow of their blue irises, the way they melted and shifted to suit his temperament, and those quick flashes of something, _the_ Something, that he always saw and never could define.

"You remembered," he said, before he knew he would say it, and Watson simply looked steadily at him, watching him, before a slow smile quirked his mustache and brightened his face as he read the Great Detective's mind as only he could.

"Of course I did, Holmes. You are a very hard man to forget, after all."

And then his smile grew broader, wide and guileless, and the Something was there, beaming before him with the weight of all the day's revelations behind it and finally, _finally_, Holmes understood.

He did not know what his answering smile looked like, but he imagined it couldn't be very different.

"You are a most remarkable individual, John Watson. I do believe this partnership will be quite successful."

Watson laughed loudly and pulled Holmes into a fierce embrace that he was loathe to leave. And now he would never have cause to. Later there would be talks of discretion, the proper way to carry out their affair to avoid suspicion, and mournful mutterings of all the lost time, but for now they were unfettered by such dark considerations, thoughts concerned only with each other, and the remainder of their clothes and the rather sturdy bed mere feet away.

* * *

Much later, after Holmes had made a thorough study of every bare inch of Watson's skin and laid claim to it with fingers and tongue, and the sun had began to sink further behind the buildings across Baker St., Holmes had thrown on his trousers and Watson's dressing gown from the wardrobe door to run down to the sitting room and retrieve his pipe—"And supper, Holmes, I heard Mrs. Hudson bring it up an hour ago and some of us have a keen interest in keeping up our stamina." It was upon entering the cluttered room that he noticed, sitting propped against the tin cover of their meal on the sideboard, a telegram which had not been there before. Clearly Mrs. Hudson had brought it up with their food—and they were sure to be scolded blisteringly tomorrow for not eating properly—along with the rest of the evening post. A deep suspicion was growing in his gut as he picked up the thin envelope and tore it open.

His suspicions, as always, were proven correct.

CONGRATULATIONS ON CESSATION OF YOUR BLIND IDIOCY STOP. WISHING ALL THE HAPPINESS YOU ARE CAPABLE OF STOP. GIVE THE DOCTOR MY REGARDS END STOP.

-M.

He had thought that was the end of it, but a brief post-script had been included, near the bottom of the card.

PS. I WILL ACCEPT PAYMENT FOR CHICHESTER DAMAGES AS SUITABLE SHOW OF GRATITUDE END STOP.

Holmes growled and crumpled the telegram up before throwing it into the withering sparks of the sitting room fire, though his irritation could not quite stop the upward curve of his lips. He would probably never pay the money he owed Mycroft, and he knew he would never say thank you. But perhaps there were other concessions he could make.

His eyes slid over to the Moroccan case sitting boldly in the middle of their mantle piece before he looked away again, grabbing his pipe and the Persian slipper and dashing back towards the staircase.

"Holmes, if you do not have that tray of food with you, you can forget about entering this room again for the remainder of the night," Watson called before he even reached the landing and he stopped, looking down at his hands empty of any kind of legitimate sustenance, and he permitted an amused snort loud enough that Watson heard, which started him laughing as well, and Holmes turned and headed back to the sitting room lest he incite his lover's very formidable temper.

Tomorrow would be a day for oaths and sacrifice and secrecy.

Tonight, Holmes wanted to know what cranberry chutney tasted like when licked off the thighs of a singularly enthusiastic Army doctor.

THE END (END STOP).

* * *

Yes. It's over. We can all breath a sigh of relief. I am actually really worried about the effect of the pronz, having never written book!canon Holmes/Watson before, and therefore having no concept of the proper way to write Victorian smut. If it felt like I lost the feel of the period there, I apologize greatly. Also, Holmes=MASSIVE OOC, but I also just explained it to myself that him being in love is OOC to begin with, so how much can I really muck it up, in the end? (Answer: spectacularly). Again, thanks so much for reading this, and reviews as always make my life worth living!


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